


Arya Stark beyond the Sunset Sea

by Marcus_S



Series: Arya Stark's Multiverse [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Awkward Sexual Situations, Beards (Facial Hair), Breasts, Brothels, Canals and Lock Gates, Condoms, Dildos, Dragons, Drunkenness, Embarrassment, Emotional commitment, Erotica, Exhibitionism, Exploration, Foreplay, Gender or Sex Swap, Group Sex, Guilt, Love Confessions, Masturbation, Menstruation, Mooncups, Multi, Nudity, POV Arya Stark, POV Original Character, Porn With Plot, Pregnancy, Pubic Hair, Public Nudity, Sex Education, Sexual Orientation, Sexual morality, Shapeshifting, Smut, Sterility, Toilets/Bathrooms, Unconsummated sexual arousal, Vomiting, Voyeurism, Warging, discussion of incest, explicit discussion of sex, homosexuaity discussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 60
Words: 105,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24220270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S/pseuds/Marcus_S
Summary: What happened after Arya stepped on board the ship at the end of series 8.We stay in a pre-industrial era, but there are also things that you won't meet in a history bookThis story has been edited, a lot of things are discussed but it isn't a porn fest.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Original Character(s)
Series: Arya Stark's Multiverse [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779334
Comments: 28
Kudos: 23





	1. All aboard the Skylark

**Author's Note:**

> Arya Stark is the property of GRR Martin the story is © Marcus Stanton 2020
> 
> Prologue by Arya Stark
> 
> I sit here in my rooms overlooking the Sunset Sea writing these words. I am probably about eighty years old and I feel my time is coming so I have set down my version of my life with Marcus Stanson. The story covers the fifteen years or so from my leaving King’s Landing to seek the Land West of Westeros up to the death of the man I left with, Marcus Stanson, who was the master of the ship the Petrel on which we first sailed. Like all of history this is however a story. The text is written as if by two people largely in parallel. I have done this because the story is composed of my own logs and rutters and those of Marcus, which I have held since his death. This method of writing also has the advantage of preventing either of us looking more than we were, as each of us was always willing to record the faults and failings of the other.  
> Warning: Marcus and I don’t share a lot of people's inhibitions about normality so we’re going to talk about things that might make you feel uncomfortable. We also met some strange cultures over the years who live in ways that would not be considered normal in Westeros or perhaps where you live. If you find that sort of idea troubling you might be best getting your maidservant to read you something else while you do your embroidery.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a boat I'd better get on board

I watched them walking down the quay towards my ship, the Petrel. It was supposed to be the family seeing her off but to me it looked more like “Prisoner and Escort”. The rest of Arya Starks siblings, legitimate or not, coming to see her on her way into exile because they couldn’t go to sleep at night with not knowing in whose body she might be lurking round the building planning her next revenge. At first I’d discounted as ale house tattle the stories of her being able to change into the form of another person, but it has been her elder sister Sansa who had confirmed this while paying me for my boat and crew. “My sister” she’d said with a slightly nervous look “has certain attributes that might be surprising”. So officially Arya Stark was “Restless” and wanted to “See what’s beyond the West”, but in reality she was being removed from an environment in which it was too easy to see chaos, death and destruction following in her footsteps.

Well they came to see me off, it was the least they could do and I suppose I should have been grateful they bothered. I wasn’t, I’d got back to my family without their help, killed the bigger of the two threats to them in the shape of the Ice King. I would have killed Cersei if the stupid Dragon woman hadn’t gone kill crazy and I wouldn’t have raised half of King’s landing and killed hundreds of innocent people on the way. People despise assassins and praise warriors, in my eye we’re both just killers, but assassins are a lot more selective. As a reward I’d been offered the ‘opportunity’ to do anything I liked as long it was well away from Westeros; so they didn’t need to continue to have to worry about ‘what Arya will do next’.

When I was approached to assemble this crew, I’d had wondered why they all had to be older men, single or widowed, like me. Why we were all to be paid handsomely in advance what amounted to a good years earnings and why there was to be no cargo on a cargo ship. Food and water, nothing but food and water had been when the penny dropped, we were going away and we were not expected to come back. In fact we were not meant to come back. We were going to sail into the sunset, literally, and just keep going. We were going to find some sort of fabled imaginary Western continent or we were going to die of scurvy or starvation if we didn’t. Finally and most telling had been Sansa’s observation that “If you were to find somewhere, we don’t really want to know about it. Westeros has enough problems without the arrival of the forces of a foreign empire. Just settle down there and enjoy yourselves”. So fourteen men plus myself, no idiots, they’d all sailed with me before, we’d all passed our pay straight onto our surviving children, said our goodbyes and were ready to go.

The boat in front of me was frankly, small, one mast, one simple square sail. I’d also been told by several people the crew were the scrapings of the dockside taverns, a collection of crocked old men who no one would miss and whose chances of survival were minimal in bad weather even before we’d reached Oldtown and set off on the real voyage.

She came down the gangplank quite nimbly, jumped down to the deck and walked up to me with an open face and what looked like an honest smile. “Pleased to meet you Captain, I’m Arya Stark.” She was small, not just short, but slim, barely more than a young cabin boy, only the baby smooth cheeks really gave away the fact she was female. He’d heard her called horse-faced, but that seemed unkind; I fancied if she smiled she might look almost pleasing. She’d dressed fairly sensibly mostly in leather and breeches, but she carried a slim rapier down her right side and had nothing on her head. Well they were two things that could be quickly remedied.

We’ll skip the hugs and kisses; I thought about leaping straight onto the deck from the dockside, then thought ‘why bother’ and walked down the plank provided. There was a man clearly waiting for me, tall average build, nondescript clothing apart from a red woollen felted hat, plenty of grey hair including the apparently obligatory face full of whiskers. I suppose shaving on a moving ship isn’t easy but you’d think when they got onto dry land they could try and make themselves look more like a human being and less like a wildling. 

Well formalities first; “Good day M’lady”; I bent just far enough forward that you could call it a bow, without ever going far enough that someone might think I was seriously deferential. Firstly it was my ship, secondly I was getting old and rheumatism meant if I bent too far I might not straighten up again.

“My names Arya Captain, I’ve never been much of a lady and I don’t see I’ll need to start on your ship.” I thrust out a hand and when he clasped my arm made sure he felt a firm grip. I wanted him to realise early that I wasn’t a little girl he could treat how he pleased.

Well if they were going to Hell at least it appeared they’d do it in a companionable manner. “Well its Marcus Stanson then Arya, but as Master of this vessel I’m referred to ask ‘Skipper’ while we’re on board. Captain is for important people who don’t stand a watch and have servants and we have none of those luxuries here”.

Captain, skipper, he can call himself what he likes, I thought.

I looked forward, “Cast off then Haerd” and turned to the man behind me at the tiller bar. “Helm to port”. The first mates whistle sounded from the deck and with a crack the canvas fell from the yard and was hauled in getting the ship under way.

He turned away from me and started issuing orders and the sail was filling with wind and pushing us into the estuary. “Are you in a hurry - Captain”, I stressed the last word to see if he’d rise to the bait.

“Yes, the tides turning and if we don’t get out of port in the next hour we might as well stay the night, for we’ll just end up in the river with just enough wind to balance the tide and us actually going nowhere”. I was tempted to add “And I was told we should get under way sharply”, but I thought why bother, she knows what’s going on. I could see it written on her face as she stared back at the quay, where her family were waving with perhaps just a little too much enthusiasm.

No he didn’t react so I looked back as King’s Landing started to recede and there they all were waving, like I was on a day’s outing.

“So at this point I usually make some sort of bad joke about ‘All aboard the skylark for a trip round the bay’, but I have to be honest even I’m struggling to see the funny side of this voyage”. 

I looked at him, paused and deliberately smiled, “Oh come on skipper, you have no idea what excitement we might have and how much you might enjoy it”. If he wanted to play comedian with me he was going to get a big surprise, some of my jokes hurt. 

Well there’s nothing like an enthusiast, the question was, was it real or was I getting the false face of someone not wanting to admit she’d been turned out by her family and sent off to die. “Now let me show you to your cabin and we can lose that bodkin you’re carrying before it hurts someone, probably you”.

I turned sharply to face him, “You are the master of this vessel, you are not the master of me” and turned away again just as the Petrel hit the first serious wave and pitched. I shifted my balance it wasn’t hard, but I didn’t expect a swinging scabbard to flick between my legs nearly putting me on the floor. I had to grab the side of the ship to keep my feet.

“As I said Arya, that sword will get you hurt. You’ve no need for anything other than a good working knife on this ship, so do yourself a favour and leave it in your cabin until we reach dry land again. Your cabin’s this door here”.

My first reaction was to snap back at him, but what was the point; all right one to him, there’d be other times. He was pointing at a door so I got a firm hold of Needle and walked towards it.


	2. Not enough room to swing a cat, particularly one that’s spitting and angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most relationships start with a rocky patch.

Well I was on board and we were already moving towards the open sea. The captain hadn’t hung about getting moving. I knew little of tides and winds in those days but something more of politics so I suspected that time and tide had been arranged to ensure I would come down to the dock and leave. No time for much to be said, although what was there to say when you realised that even your own sister was terrified by the thought that you killed people on a regular basis and had no real qualms about doing so. So everyone had agreed to my suggestion that I go and find what was West of Westeros. I wasn’t even sure where the idea had come from. The last few years weren’t a blur, I clearly remembered every moment, including far too many unsavoury details, but they’d passed so quickly that once it was all over I felt a sense of shock and yes purposelessness, so West of Westeros had seemed an easy answer; however with the roll of the ship as it moved out to sea I was well aware that life was going to be very different for a long time in ways I had not really thought through.

There was not time now for introspection; a door was being pointed out to me, so I grasped hold of Needle firmly in my right hand and stepped across the deck and into the open door of my cabin. And stopped short, I’d no choice as I’d nearly walked into the wall. To describe the space as small was being generous, there was half a narrow cot, the other half of which went back up the side of the hull, a large box in front of some small panes of glass offering a rather murky view of the ships wake, a table just big enough for one place setting, a three legged stool and a sheet of canvas connecting wall to window.

I hadn’t followed her into the room, but was leaning my head in from outside. “It’s a bit cramped, but there’s nowhere else to put you, the hold’s full, there’s no space in the fo’c’sle and beside that’s no place for you and I’m not having you sharing with me; so we rigged up some timber up to the table level and the sailcloth above and you’ve got half what’s normally my cabin and I’m on the other side. This ship was never meant for comfort or passengers, still she sails better than those that are, so if you fancy living to find your mystical land you’re better off on her than anything bigger”.

I didn’t like the casual way he’d said that he wouldn’t share with me. I didn’t want to share with him, but I also didn’t want to be put down so easily “And why Captain” I stressed the title deliberately again “would you not share with me”.

“Simple, the crew would assume I’m bedding you and get jealous. This trip will give us enough problems without trouble in the fo’c’sle before we’re a day out of port”.

“Why would anyone assume I would let you bed me, Captain” again the stress on the final word.

“Because sailors have a different view of the role of women in life than you do. I realise that for what looks like a slip of a chit of a girl you’ve had a hard life and you’re not a child but there’s still a lot of life for you to learn about yet”. I paused and when she offered no reply went on. “When you’ve settled in we can share the view during the day. That line” and I pointed to a loose end of rope hanging from the top of the canvas by the Window “is a slip knot. One good pull and the canvas will drop down and we can share our food and be sociable. I’ve fixed it all on your side so you have control of when it’s closed or open”. 

I turned to face him, he was altogether too self-assured and cocky, “I’m sure it will be fine where it is”. He closed the door behind me and I heard him move away from the door, then open the one on his side and move into the other half of the cabin. I heard a book open, he was clearly writing something down. I looked at the huge trunk taking up half the cabin. What was in it; I’d lived most of the last few years with nothing more than the clothes on my back and I didn’t suppose sailors were that fussy about personal hygiene since everything seemed at present to smell of salt. I lifted the lid to be confronted by a carefully folded brocade court dress.

I left her to her own devices and walked round to my cabin, sat down and pulled out my rutter. I had just started writing a brief note about the start of the voyage, and I’ll admit a few thoughts on my passenger, when I heard things being thrown around and cursing coming from the other side of the partition. I’d seen what was in her luggage when they’d brought it on board and I’d pointed out where some of it could be stowed beneath the bunk. I’d thought at the time that a lot of it was irrelevant, but it wasn’t my business so I’d said nothing. Now it appeared she shared my opinion. It seemed like an opportunity to help melt the ice a bit so I called to her through the partition “I assume you didn’t pack your own bags then”. All noise on the other side immediately stopped. I’ll swear I could almost hear her grinding her teeth.

“My baggage is, again, my affair thank you captain”. I shoved everything back in careless of whether it was folded correctly or not slammed the lid and sat on it. The ship pitched and I came off the trunk, it wasn’t designed to be sat on. I moved to the stool, that was stable but mean you had to sit up straight, which wasn’t relaxing or slump forward and lean on your arms, which I knew would crick my neck very quickly. It was clear you couldn’t sit on the cot as the high side, presumably there to prevent you falling out in rough weather, would cut up under your knees. I got into the cot and stretched my legs out into the extra couple of feet that projected under the steps to the deck above me. This would be fine for sleeping, there was room for someone much taller than me, but there was no back to sit up against, I had no choice but to lie down and stare up at a set of bare wooden planks. After about two minutes I was sick of the view. I got up, walked out of the cabin, down the length of the ship, climbed the steps and walked right to the bows. Standing right next to the bow I wrapped one arm round the rope coming down from the mast and stared out to sea.

Standing on the deck, I took a look round the ship. We’d cleared the spit at the mouth of the harbour and were running down the estuary. Mentally I ran through the first leg of the journey; we had to go right round Westeros to Oldtown restock food and water so that we could start out on the voyage proper. Sansa had apparently pre-arranged that supplies would be ready and paid for. I had a chitty for a chandler I knew in Oldtown charging everything to the Queen of the North, as she now styled herself.

I looked forward, Arya had been stood at the prow now since before I’d come on watch. That made it close enough to an hour and a half, We were running down wind but that didn’t stop the Petrel dipping her bow in a wave now and then and I knew she must be wet, and in this wind she would thus be cold. In view of my last attempt to be friendly backfiring I decided on an alternate approach. I turned back to stand by the tillerman “I’ll take her Haerd, do me a favour and get a hat from somewhere and go and persuade her to put it on and ideally get her back in her cabin. She’ll catch her death up there otherwise”. Haerd looked down at me with mock surprise on his face “So you’re winning ways haven’t won her over skipper” “No, she as sharp as that rapier she brought on board, I’m going to have my work cut out on this one”. My ‘reputation’ as a ladies man with those of the crew I knew best was based on having been happily married for 35 years to the same woman; something none of them had achieved for a variety of good and not so good reasons. Haerd’s shoulders lifted in silent mock amusement and he handed me the tiller bar and headed into the fo’c’sle to find a hat.

I heard footsteps behind me, had he come up to have another dig, but as someone cleared his throat in a very fake cough I realised it wasn’t Stanson but one of the other crew. I turned round and looked up to the biggest man I’d come across since my days wandering the North with Sandor Clegan. He was holding out another red felted cap and looking both embarrassed and a little frightened. “Beggin your pardon miss but you’ll catch your death standing there and gettin your head soaked like you are” and without waiting for my reply he reached out and put the hat on my head and pulled the sides down well over my ears. He then stood and looked at me like a puppy that had brought me a stick and wanted to be told he was a good dog.

There are some people you just shouldn’t hurt because you can and this mountain of a man looked so concerned and vulnerable that a lot of my anger flowed away. “Thank you, that’s kind of you, I’m sorry but no one had told me your name”. “Haerd miss”, “Well Haerd you have been very considerate unlike your captain. Who seems just to delight in making belittling comments”. “The skipper miss, I’m not sure what belittling is but he don’t mean you to be upset at what he says, it’s just jokes, we all joke miss. When things get bad it helps you forget you might be crab food tomorrow. No your big risk with the skipper is he’ll make you part of the family, treat you like one of his kids, spoil you something rotten. His daughter has him wrapped round her little finger whenever he’s on shore. You just got to smile sweetly at him and he’ll do anything you ask”. With this little speech concluded he turned to walk back down to the deck as the ship’s bell rang three times, he turned back towards me “that’s half an hour to the end of the dogwatch and supper. I’d get back in your cabin and dry out before that if were you”.

As he left me I realised that yes I as both very cold and very wet and also very tired. I was unconvinced about his assessment of the captain, but I did wonder if Haerd might become a friend.

Haerd came back to me and took the tiller bar back. Arya followed on barely six feet behind him and went into her cabin. As she passed him she smiled in his direction. “You did the puppy dog eyes didn’t you”. “Never fails skipper, still it got her inside. Its’ a bit raw up there she must have been freezing. She stuck it out though, she’ll not be the sort who spends the whole trip weeping and wailing on us. I think I might grow to like her”. I knew what Haerd meant by ‘like’ but I also knew that I could trust him to do nothing about it. He carried on “She says you’re belittling her, whatever that means, I don’t think she’s got the hang of sailors humour yet. I explained it means nothing but I think it would be good that you cut it out”. He was probably right, just back off and let her find her feet. I heard the cabin door open behind him and watched Arya emerge; swordless, which was a good sign and apparently in a change of clothing although it appeared her dress style was tight dark leather for all occasions. She walked towards us and came to a stop in front of me.

“Skipper, where’s the privy”.

Well that was a start I’d stopped being Captain. “What we call the heads is in the fo’c’sle, but as I said earlier you’re not going there. It’s the crew’s quarters and since the heads are basically a row of holes in the planking you’d not be wanting to remove your pants in front of half a dozen bored men. They may not be in the first flush of youth but they’re still men. There’s a bucket under the table in your cabin, the contents go over the leeward, that’s downwind, side of the ship, or on a windy day you’ll get them back full in the face and if it needs cleaning out you rope it to the nearest belaying pin and leave it in the water for a while. Doesn’t do any harm to leave some seawater in it when you put it back, deadens the smell a bit in your cabin”.

“Everything in my cabin smells of salt, in fact everything on this ship smells of salt”.

“That’s because you’re a landlubber, a couple of days, a week at most and you won’t smell it; another week and you’ll smell other things and wish it did all smell of salt then that’ll pass and you’ll wonder why when we hit land everyone is standing a fathom away from you. You will then notice that everything on land smells of horse dung, on a good day”.

Well that would be fun, using in a bucket with its contents slopping around beneath me, but I didn’t see an obvious alternative so I thanked him and went back to my cabin. After I’d taken the bucket to the side and disposed of the contents I perched on the stool and tried to take stock of my situation.

Firstly – I’m on a ship heading eventually to the edge of the world, beyond what everyone knew of to see if the fables were true. While this sounded heroic, in reality it was all about getting away from ‘court’ for everyone’s good including my own.

Secondly - I knew practically nothing about ships. I had a vague idea that the bow and stern were front and back respectively, but I knew that sailors had their own terms for most things and their own ways of doing things about which I was frankly clueless.

Thirdly – the voyage would be months not days or even weeks and since I knew nothing about ships I would be able to do nothing. Long days of total inactivity lay ahead unless I learned to be useful.

Fourthly – I knew no one on board and they knew me only by rumour, which was unlikely to have given them anything but lurid exaggeration. Haerd seemed sweet, in the end I’d realised Sandor Clegan wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. Maybe I had a thing for big men, that idea made me laugh.

I resolved there was really only one answer to all this, I had to be pleasant to the skipper, whether he was pleasant back or not, to learn to try and be at least useful to the crew even if I could not manage to be genuinely competent as a sailor. There could be no prayer at night of the list of people I meant to kill tomorrow; if I killed anyone on this ship it was one less man to keep us sailing. Well Sandor had said I shouldn’t let myself be trapped into endless violence and revenge and it was true that I would have to leave that place behind at least for now.


	3. First steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every journey has to start somewhere, in this case we're talking about the people.

We changed the watch and I gave her enough time to sort herself out, then took her a bowl of beef and cabbage stew and a big lump of fresh bread. The door to her cabin had been wedged open so I simply leaned into the room and put it down on the table. “I’m going back for mine; do you want to eat alone or drop that sheet and we can talk. Maybe you can tell me what you know about the lands to the West we’re off to”. She took the bowl and pointed at the ropes end.

“I just pull and it comes down?”

“Pretty much, the slipknot will come undone so then there’s nothing holding it up”. Arya handed me back the bowl and gave the line a steady pull, the knot slipped free and the sheet fell to the table.

I return to my cabin a few minutes later with my own bowl to find her sat at the table looking into the empty bowl as she mopped the very last bits out with the last lump of bread. I was honestly impressed; I’d know ‘growing lads’ in my time, I’d been one myself, but she’d cleaned out a good meal in the time it had taken me to walk twice the length of the ship.

“That was good, I thought you lived on rotten salted meat and some sort of rock hard biscuit with maggots. The taste of cabbage was a bit strong though”.

“This is the first day out of port. The fresh meat will last four days if we’re lucky and the bread about a week; then it will be salt meat and biscuit. You won’t get the privilege of weevils until we’ve been at sea about a month, it takes a while for them to hatch see. As to the taste of cabbage I’ve made this observation, the more cabbage we eat the slower we get scurvy on long voyages so if you want to keep your teeth you’ll eat it. When the fresh stuff runs out you’ll get it fermented and pickled and then you’ll think fresh was good. Normally we’d go into port for fresh food several times on our way round to Oldtown, but I want to stay at sea as long as possible to get an idea of how fast we use up our stores and prove we can survive on it”. The look on her face said she didn’t quite believe some of what I’d said, but I thought I’d not push the matter, she’d learn although hopefully not when half her teeth fell out.

I sat myself down and proceeded to eat my food at a more leisurely pace. She sat silently at the table and watched me, saying nothing, it was frankly slightly unnerving, but then I thought, she doesn’t know me, she’s on unfamiliar ground, maybe I should lead off. So trying my best not to let my food go cold but also not to chew and talk I asked “Do you actually know anything specific about where we were going, have you brought any papers, charts, rutters, some description of the place”. That put a rather serious look on her face, the answer was obvious before she’d opened her mouth, no. She admitted it and her voice turned belligerent.

“No I really know no more than you do. I suppose you think it’s stupid doing this, some sort of rich girl’s fancy”.

“Whether you’re rich or a girl is immaterial, but yes it does seem a bit of an ill planned idea and you don’t seem like the sort who goes in for bad planning. I’ve been told you spent years with a plan of revenge and executed it almost completely. So that leaves me thinking that you know it’s a poor plan but the others were even worse. I’m guessing it was here, a convent, or a husband and a clutch of squalling babies and here has the advantage that folk with nervous dispositions don’t wonder how long you’ll stop where you’re put”. Her face fell and her shoulders slumped.

“I gather you’re widowed, but you have children and I’ll guess grandchildren, are you afraid of them, are your family afraid of you”.

“No they’re not afraid of me, although after years at sea I’ll admit I’m probably not the best of ‘family’ men. My wife always said I was too used things my way and no tolerance of others and she’s probably right”.

“I was nine when my father was killed in front of me, and I’ve spent most of my time since then working on killing those who did it and others who’ve wronged me and mine. When I finished I found the very people I thought I’d done it for standing six feet away from me, as if that would do them any good”. I stopped for a moment and looked him straight in the eye. “And now I suppose I’m killing you and the crew by taking us all on an impossible voyage to a place that might not exist and if it does I have no idea where it might be”.

Her voice was steady but her face said the consequences of her actions were hitting home. I thought it might be useful to change the subject, but it was difficult not to address the very obvious truth of her statement.  
“Well do we have any other options, the seas a big place, coast lines are long, I could drop you off in plenty of places that no one would ever know and you could just walk away and make yourself some other life where folk don’t know you. We could sail around a bit over the horizon until your family would feel they’ve had their money’s worth and then come back with a sad tale of you going over the side in rough seas. I could claim you’d tried to do something we’d all said you couldn’t but you’d tried to prove us wrong. I suspect they’d swallow that”. I got a grin out of her for that.

“Won’t work, the new King, my brother; he has visions; knows what’s going on miles away and sometimes almost into the future”.

“Suppose you did your shapeshifting act. Would he know then”. This got a raised eyebrow.

“So you’ve heard about that then”.

“The whole of Westros has heard about that, although I’ll be honest I didn’t believe it until your sister confirmed it and I suspect many more intelligent folk will assume it’s just a story, which just shows sometimes being intelligent doesn’t get you to the right answer”.

“No it’s true, but it has its limits, I have to concentrate on holding the form so I don’t think it would hold if I slept. It’s a good question though, would Bran see through me in his visions or not. Something I might have tried out if I’d considered it sooner. No sadly for you I think my best chance of a future life really is to try and find the land in the West of the Sunset Sea”.

“So tell me what you do know”.

“Elllisa Farman, a Targaryen, on a ship called Sun Chaser, found three uninhabited islands generations ago, which she named Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya. Elissa continued sailing west and was never seen again. However, it’s said her ship, Sun Chaser, was spotted in Asshai, the port city in east Essos”.

“So that implies someone made it all the way round then and there is nothing much West of Westeros except what’s also East of Westeros and in that case going East would be a lot shorter and much faster journey”.

“At least we won’t sail over the edge then”.

“Any sailor can see from the deck, never mind from the Crow’s Nest that the horizon curves at sea from side to side and when you sail away from somewhere it doesn’t get too small to see, the lower bits disappear first, castle towers tall cliffs go last, it pretty obvious you’re going over the surface of a ball, but how big the ball is, that’s another matter”.

“What did you mean by the Crow’s Nest”.

“Look up the mast, where the stays, the ropes from the side of the ship holding the mast in place, meet the mast you’ll see a small platform, it’s for the lookout, normally a place we send some skinny young lad as getting in and out needs a flexible body better than most of this crew can boast. It’s worth thinking about, if you sit in that cabin you’ll get mighty bored, unless of course you’ve brought your embroidery”; I slipped in a grin so she’d, hopefully, realise that was meant as a joke, however feeble “so if you stand watch with me it will let you learn all you’ll ever need to know about the ship and keep you occupied”. A smile, I might be winning here. However far into her teens she was she was still a child in my eyes and I wanted her to enjoy herself. Life had treated her badly so far and I’d decided I wanted to make things better for her. I realised if I told Haerd that he’d have just smiled at me and said that was what I did to everyone.

Well he’d made the offer so in for penny etc. “I’d like that, how does it all work, watches as you call them”.

I settled back in my chair, “It works like this”.


	4. Watch on, Watch off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well I asked so someone had to explain sailing to me, then we get to talk about other things.

Well I wasn’t bored; cold, wet, my hands blistered but not bored and keeping watch gave your day a structure. One watch on, two watches off, normally four hours, or eight bells as they called it ringing the ships bell every thirty minutes as the skipper or one of the mates turned the sandglass; but only two hours for the dog watches in the late afternoon so the watches rotated on a three day basis. Middle, Afternoon, First, starting at midnight, midday and eight in the evening all eight hours was the hardest day. Forenoon, last dog the best you got a good night’s sleep ‘til eight then the afternoon off and just a quick two hours after an early supper. Finally morning, up in the dark at four o’clock and the early dog at six, which sounded good until you realised that you wanted to be in your cot straight away as you were up again at midnight for the next round.

When I was on watch Marcus taught me the simple things I needed to know to be a deckhand, or deckie. We’d started with a tour of the ship, bow and stern larboard and starboard [from stearboard from the days when the rudder went over the side], into the forecastle or fo’c’sle, although not until Haerd had gone in and done a bit of shouting to make sure everyone had some clothes on. The crews bunks, only nine for fourteen of them because some were always on watch and the stack of their ditty bags, tubular canvas container with pretty well their total worldly possessions in them. The galley; with a brick area to burn a fire and a cauldron on top to cook in. The heads, two holes either side of the timbers of the bow post where you could hang your arse in the breeze and empty your bowels. It was crude and simple and no I wasn’t going to ask to be allowed to use them in full view of whoever was off watch, but at least the smell didn’t linger. The aftercastle, our cabin with a deck on top walled to chest height with crenulations to just like a real fortress. In battle soldiers could occupy it and fight from it. The skipper explained that the fo’c’sle should look the same but he’d had the walls knocked off because it made the ship sail better. The hold, entered through a hatch in the centre of the main deck, currently full of food and water so you couldn’t actually get inside. Beneath the aftercastle, accessible with difficulty through a hatch under our table, was the steering gear, large timbers linking the rudder in the water to the tiller bar that stuck up onto the deck; below this the bilges running down the bottom of the boat right through to the bows. Weekly someone dropped a line in to work out if there was enough water in them to have to bail some out. If you wanted to be pessimistic we were permanently sinking, but no else seemed bothered so I filed it under pointless things to worry about and forgot it. Then we went on to the mast and spar and sail and the assorted lines [not ropes] that held them in place and managed the sail. The different knots for different purposes and the belaying pins to hitch lines to; also apparently freely available for me to borrow should I get ‘frustrated’. That last information I gained from a comment made by an unidentifiable voice from six feet away and behind me and was met by laughter from the others in the group. Haerd passed a comment about little children and the laughter stopped.

It’s worth mentioning Haerd in more detail at this point. He was four inches taller and probably four stone heavier than any other man on board. He considered Stanson his father and would do anything for him; this meant that effectively he was the skipper’s enforcer. Haerd did anything the skipper wanted, if you didn’t want to do the same thing you could take it up with him, at the time, face to face. No one ever seemed inclined to do so. He was also apparently a genuine ‘a girl in every port’ sailor. Not for Haerd the risks and costs of the dockside brothel, no Haerd would find and charm a respectable widow, sometimes two and only for one visit. If he returned on a second trip it was a different woman or women. He had apparently only had one problem with this approach in twentyfive years, when it turned out he was simultaneously bedding mother and daughter and the mother worked it out. I calculated on a sort of law of average basis that he probably had to have fathered two or three children a year. One man claimed to have sailed with twins who were his perfect image on another ship. Suddenly his winning smile didn’t seem quite so attractive.

I learned this as I learned many other things from the crew, not by a face to face conversation; if I tried to talk to them I got the absolute minimum answer possible and they were moving away from me before they’d finished talking, but I would find as I was working on deck that two or three of them would be having a conversation near enough that I could hear every word, but far enough away that I clearly wasn’t expected to join in. This irritated me and I complained to Stanson “It’s like I’m not a person, I’m some sort of weird animal”.

Well on a ship behaving as one of the crew she was, but I could hardly tell her that. “To them you’re a princess and a killer, that’s two very powerful reasons not to want to have anything to do with you; but funnily they think you’re also ‘all right’ so if they think you need to know something they want to get the message passed on without coming to me every time. I’m impressed you’ve made that good an impression that quickly; I’ve known a new deckie take months to be accepted by an established crew”. I didn’t add that I knew they also thought she was ‘cute’ and that that had a lot to do with her acceptance. Somehow I suspected she wouldn’t see that as a positive thing.

Once I’d got the basics and could actually help the crew instead of just getting under foot we moved on to the master’s skills of navigation, heaving the log to find our speed, then plotting our course by dead reckoning of time and speed and direction from the log book. While we were on the way to Oldtown he had tables of currents, the speed of the water under us to add to the plot so that he got a more accurate position and when we were in sight of land he would take compass bearings of recognisable things, castle turrets in known places as we sailed by to provide corrections. A lot of this he pointed out would be gone once we set out West. There would be no land and he would have no current tables. He could tell how far north we fairly accurately were by sighting the stars; the lower they were in the sky the further south we’d gone. To calculate how far west we’d gone he compared the time the sun was highest with the time from turning the sandglass, but as he pointed out, you only needed someone to forget to turn the glass one night and that system became quite inaccurate quite quickly. He had prepared a big roll of parchment with Westeros a pretty small set of squiggles on the far right edge and a scale that he assured me meant we’d run out of food and water before we ran out of map.

Off watch was another matter. It took a about a week, for me to learn none of the other crew, not even Haerd, would actually speak to me unless they must, and thus realise that Marcus Stanson was now not only my sailing master but also my only real companion. In one sense it was easy, he could talk, and talk, all I had to do was sit and listen, but sometimes it felt a bit too much like I was the compliant child being lectured to and that rankled. He was, I learned, well over 60 years old and had been sailing since he was a boy of about 10. By 30 he was a Master Mariner and by 35 he owned his own boat. He’d sailed pretty much every part of the known world at least once and thus had set foot in virtually every port and mixed with every culture, or as he kept putting it ‘every known culture’. He had an idea that foreign places might also mean foreign behaviour, very foreign behaviour. I’d learned by now not to take everything he said too seriously, but this wasn’t typical of his slightly warped sense of what things were funny. Who knew if the idea of unknown peoples with strange ways might not turn out to be true. He seemed very serious when he asked if other people had to be totally human, maybe mermaids really did exist and we’d have to learn to swim everywhere.

Eventually I realised I had to do more than listen, so trying not to sound like I was arguing for the sake of it I started to challenge his ideas. He was fine with that, in fact I think that was his idea, get me to challenge him, but he could then be very direct and personal and I found having my mental privacy stripped away a lot more challenging than the unavoidable loss of actual privacy of being on small ship.

I remember she asked me to help her sort out her clothing. She wanted a bit more space in her cabin, she was clearly jealous of my armchair and wanted to make room to buy one of her own when we stopped at Oldtown. Her sister had loaded her with some seriously bejewelled court clothing. There was a note with it ‘You may well need this when you arrive, to create the right impression’. The note went over side with a curse and the dresses, corsets and shifts would have gone with it had I not persuaded her that we could safely lose it all in Oldtown before we set out on the real voyage. We’d been at sea long enough that there was space in the hold as we ate our way through its contents so I suggested we put what she needed under her cot and the rest in the trunk below deck. So we went through the trunk to make sure nothing useful was in the lower layers. It was good job we did, at the bottom was a solid layer of gold coins, enough money to buy my boat twice over. As she admitted, tipping that in the sea would have been a waste.

Then I put my foot in it. There were a bundle of rags with tapes, I’d been married 30 years so I knew what they were and just idly tossed them to her to put in her cot. She caught the bundle and just held them and looked at them. “They may only be spares but best keep them where you can get them even so”. There was what could well have been called a pregnant pause in other circumstances.

“Actually I don’t need them. I think it’s because I’m so small it hasn’t happen yet”.

It was obvious I’d hit a nerve so I tried to brush it off. “Just dump them under your bunk then and I think we’re finished”.

“I suppose this will mean you’ll think I’m even more of child. My sister always told me I wouldn’t be properly grown up until it started. Of course she’s a foot tall than me so she started years ago, back before the killings when we were just a family in a castle”.

“I think your sister like a lot of young girls was just trying to score a point; in my book you’re not really grown up until you’ve had children; I know I wasn’t. I’ll never forget the first time my wife showed me our daughter, so small and so totally dependent, that was frightening. Storms and sinking I can face that’s my job and in the end if you’re times up it’s up, but knowing that someone had to look out for that girl for years and would be judged on how well she grew was truly frightening”.

“So if I’m never going to have children I’m never going to be grown up in your eyes, you’ll always treat me like a child”.

“Firstly don’t just assume you’re never going to have children, but no. I’m not treating you like a child when I teach you to sail am I. 

“No”.

“So you get treated by me as you behave, when you know nothing I teach you, when you’ve learned I respect your abilities. I’d have thought that was how you wanted it, not me kissing your ass because you’re the Princess of Wherever”.

“It is what I want, it’s just that I don’t feel I can ever have your forty, fifty years extra experience and you know that and you’ll always treat me accordingly”.

“Well, all I can say is I’ll try not to, but I have to be honest, I’ve had this conversation with my real daughter, and she’s a mother of two now and she said much the same things as you so maybe something’s you just have to put in the same bracket as the weather and If I’ve taught you anything I’ve taught you…”.

“The weather is what the weather is, live with it”. It was his favourite catechism, trotted out whenever he wanted obedience. It was also a conversation finisher whenever it suited him, because it was the most obvious unarguable truism of sailing; the weather did what it did and you got on with using it as best you could. We finished repacking my trunk and got it below so I had more room in my cabin, no chair yet but more room meant I could sit on the floor with my back against the stern timbers and my legs in font of me. It had been a worthwhile time, but it the process he now had a better idea just how young I was. It was like he was undressing my mind layer by layer the way some other men would undress a woman before sex, slowly and deliberately to emphasise her vulnerability and I didn’t like it. He did it in a way that suggested he meant no harm, but how could I be certain. It wasn’t a physical fear, I could gut him any time I liked if he put a hand where I didn’t want it, but he was challenging the way I thought at every turn and that was harder to deal with.


	5. HiStory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where are we going, not the ship us.

We had some spare time on an afternoon watch and I got the feeling she’d heard enough of me for a while so I sat back after we’d eaten. “So all these stories I’ve heard about you, what’s true and what’s just the noise of the wind in the rigging. I’m sure it’s a bit of both and in one sense I don’t much care, because on this ship you’re a different person, but I’d like to know”. 

I ignored the opening question and went for the second statement “Why am I a different person on this ship. I am who I am”.

“Yes and no, deep down inside there may be a real you, but that real you has to live with what the world throws at it. We’re all just sailors on the sea of life”

“Oh please spare me that line again, it does get repetitive”.

“Repeating something that’s true doesn’t make it any less true. It’s quite obvious if your father hadn’t been killed, if the wars hadn’t started, you’d almost certainly be a quite unhappy young woman either newly married to whoever your father wanted an alliance with or waiting for him to make his choice and you wouldn’t think the solution to your problem was killing someone; but those things did happen and so you aren’t. In one sense you might decide you’re in a better place, or you might not. So my point is, on this ship you are very literally sailing different waters from your previous life on Essos and Westeros. You know you can’t murder your way out of this because you’ve already realised sailing this ship isn’t a one man task”.

“You’re right up to a point, but after those years I have experienced I cannot be the same person I’d have been if they’d never happened”.

“I still say yes and no. If I genuinely believed you were a simple killer I’d have said no to the voyage. I take you half way round the world and you get off the boat and knife the first man you meet who upsets you, or decide to poison us all first meal after we’ve tied up because we made a few jokes at your expense on the way over. No I wouldn’t waste my time, never mind risk my life to do that”.

“So you think by the time you’ve got me to the other side you’ll have saved me from myself”.

“No, because I can’t change you, that’s something only you can do, but I hope I can have shown you a different sort of life and that you will choose to change yourself to live in a different way that is more suitable to that life”. 

“You still seem to be saying I’ll change because of what you do, don’t you think that’s a bit arrogant”.

“I suppose maybe it is, but that’s what a ships master has to do; believe he has the answers and get others to see things his way so the ship is run the way he wants it. I’ve heard very persuasive men argue that nobody knows anything; we just kid ourselves we do so we can go to sleep at night. I can see the sense in that, I sail my ship like it will always do what I want, but I know a sudden breakage or really bad weather means she’ll do something I have no control over. If I worry about it I’d never get up in the morning much less put to sea, so I don’t, I go on giving my crew orders and since we’re still alive I tell myself I’m actually pretty good at getting it right”.

“But I’m not a ship, I’m a person”.

“And the crew are people; a ship isn’t just the wood and canvas and hemp it’s all those and the people working it too”.

“But I’m not exactly what you’d call your typical sailor am I”.

“No and that’s why I’d like to understand more about you. I’ve heard a bucket full of stories from people who don’t know you from the mad dragon lady, or my mother. I want you to tell me something a bit nearer the truth, at the least your version of the truth”.

“As you’ve observed, the truth is a very debatable subject. What happened to me happened to me. Before I left King’s Landing Brienne of Tarth came to me and asked a lot of questions. I’m pretty sure she’s going to write the official Stark history of the war. Somewhere else bitter widows will be teaching their sons another version so they can restart the whole thing again in ten or fifteen years’ time when they’re full grown. Even from the Stark perspective, there’s what really happened to me, what I’m willing to tell Brienne, what she’s willing to write down, all different histories, all really just stories. Most people will never read the official version, but oral tales will spread round the taverns with more sex in them and round the ladies embroidery circles, where they definitely won’t mention the time the Hound and I got the galloping shits from eating dodgy meat”.

I raised an eyebrow, but said nothing; as I’d said it was her story.

“That sort of thing affected our relationship, in a funny way he had that bit more respect for me after that. If I write the tale of the trip into the sunset do I include the way you fart endlessly or the fact you make far too much noise relieving, what do the crew call it; ‘your frustration’”.

What I said was “That would be up to you", what I was thinking was ‘I’m going to have to work out something different for that then’.

“Then in forty years’ time when most of those who were there are dead someone will come along to revise the history to please a different master. Depending on who that master is I’ll become an out of control evil killer, or a sanitised hero little girl just trying to survive. It will all be a story; it won’t be the reality I lived through”.

Her voice cracked; she looked like she might be just about to start to cry or scream so I sat quiet for a while. The while stretched, someone rang three bells, her head had gone down into her lap, but then she lifted it and looked back at me.

It took me a minute, maybe more than one, to calm down. Why did I tell him things that upset me. “So what sort of story do you want me to tell you”.

“The one you want me to understand, the truth as you see it, the things that matter to you. Like I said I’ve heard plenty of other people’s stories I want to hear yours. I can make up my own mind whether I believe it”.

It wasn’t an unreasonable request, so why was I reluctant to answer him. Surely I wanted him to know my side of things, or was I afraid when I told him he’d decide I wasn’t a person who was worth his time and effort. Was I that afraid of my own past. I couldn’t let myself believe that, as he’d said you have to believe you’re doing things right or you don’t get up in the morning. “All right then, but it will take days not hours to explain it all, to get even close to everything that happened. I don’t think I’m boasting when I say I’ve managed to get a lot of living into a very short time”. 

“We’ve got a long trip and I’m a very patient listener”.


	6. Snippets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I review some of Marcus' notes about me.

He was obviously bothered about my complaint about the noise he made; which seemed funny to me as I wasn’t; so we’d set up a rota, alternate nights one of us took a ten minute walk on deck while the other had some time to themselves. I don’t know whether he needed every other night, I didn’t, but it was the easy compromise that made life simple for both of us and I appreciated that. Stanson was right he was a good listener. It became just a little surreal, a bedtime story; we’d lie there in our cots, we’d long given up bothering about the screen, and I’d talk to him while we both stared at the decking above our heads. When I got tired I’d stop and we’d go to sleep. He asked a lot of questions, but never passed comment, never said what he thought was right or wrong. When I went through his rutters years later I found he’d made notes about some of things I’d said. Reading them back was quite painful; he was good at picking up the pieces that had hurt me in all sorts of different ways. I suppose that was his aim to understand why I was hurt so he could show me something better.

These are the things Marcus noted down

She tries to love her sister, but says it’s hard. Despite Sansa doing what she calls ‘the perfect princess act’, she says Sansa’s just as hard-nosed and competitive as she is. She’s older, she’s bigger, so of course she started to bleed before Arya did but even when she was in pain from the cramps she would stuff it in Arya’s face, that it made her more of a woman, more grown up, better, more desirable. If she’d not done that Arya wonders would she have become what she is or would she be happily married and pregnant back in King’s Landing. She observed that I’d already realised it was a sore subject. As an assassin it should be an advantage, one less distraction allowing her to concentrate on the job. The same on this ship, she wondered what the crew would all say if there was a row of washed out rags strung across the deck to dry; but she feels it’s still a little worm inside her every day reinforcing the hurt.

She tells me she’s lied to me a bit it about her moonbleeds. It’s happened, but it doesn’t keep going, She has one or two and they stop. She thinks it’s a weight thing, so since she’s not eating a lot on the Petrel she may stay dry for the whole trip. She says if she does start she’s not worried about me knowing, because she’s sure I’ll just shrug my shoulders as if I’ve been dealing with it on-board all my life. She thinks that this feeling is strange, that she doesn’t have to be concerned about my acceptance of her behaviour.

She has another problem with Sansa. She thinks she’s also a lot more attractive than she is. She knows all about the ‘Arya horseface’ comments, she thinks she’s got eyebrows like a man’s, very small breasts and no real bum. Long before she could shapeshift she played being a boy so often she wondered if she was a boy and she’d just been born with the wrong bits between my legs. The only thing that convinced her it wasn’t like that was that she didn’t like girls; but she didn’t like boys either, she thinks she just didn’t like people. She’s still not sure she does. She says that there’s a part of her that thinks about dying and becoming one with her direwolf Nymeria as the best way forward. Somehow the idea of being a mother of pups seems better than the idea of being the mother of children.

She says she lost any sense of personal modesty travelling with the Hound. When they first started out he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, so after she’d learned that riding in wet pants very quickly rubs the inside of your thighs raw she got use to squatting in front of him. Her words were “The reality is if a girl squats a man standing doesn’t really see anything, it’s the fact that you’re exposed, your legs are wide apart that’s the risk. You’re being suggestive, saying I’ve opened my legs, you can take advantage of that”. She knew Sandor didn’t want her for sex, in fact he wanted her intact to sell to people who valued that sort of thing, so she didn’t feel at risk. Once she’d realised that, she felt it wasn’t so frightening and it’s only humiliating if you think that way. To her the humiliation was that he had control of where she went and who she met, that if he could get a good price he would sell her to someone who might be interested in her for sex.

She has spent a lot of time in a brothel, she said “I’ve seen everything you can imagine and a whole load of sickness you probably can’t and I don’t want to tell you that sickness because you don’t deserve to know. I’m not going to tell you or anyone else what I only saw and what I actually had done to me. Part of surviving that time was telling myself this was a sickness like a growth inside me and when it ended I’d cured myself by cutting it out and throwing it away”. The people who hurt her are all dead, mostly at her hands and her feelings about that are satisfaction at a job well done. When one of them died before she could get to him it initially angered her, she’d been deprived of her vengeance, but she asked herself what was she going to do; hunt his killer down and kill him instead. So she’s learned to accept that if she wants someone dead when they’re dead she’s got what she wants and moves on.

She thinks that one of the problems at living in a brothel is you learn a lot about the mechanics of sex but nothing about the context. She said “It doesn’t matter whether I did it and faked enjoyment, or I watched someone else doing it and faking it I don’t really understand what a normal healthy girl should feel like doing and wanting to have done to her”. When she had sex she was very scared that she’d do something he’d think was sick and perverted, so she felt she had to be passive and just let him do what he wanted. 

Valar Morghulis, she thinks it’s a stupid truism, of course every man, and woman, must die. Valar Dohaeris is in her words “Even bigger bollocks”, she’s known plenty of people who serve no one but themselves and in her opinion then pretty stupidly because they couldn’t see that idle selfishness wasn’t good for them, but they kept it up until their deaths. Finally the idea the killing someone is giving them the gift of release from the struggles of life and is thus a holy thing sickens her. She’s upset that she got involved in that sickness. She thinks whether she did it for her own ends or not doesn’t alter the fact that to have done it makes her a sick person.

She lost her virginity as she put it “In the sense my parents would apply”, to a man the night before she expected to die in the battle against the Ice King. She said the sex was quite good, he was very gentle and considerate and she’d reached what she said her mother described to her once rather vaguely as ‘the summit of pleasure’, but afterwards they lay there next to each other with a huge silence between them. She’d known him a long time, since she was little. She said it almost felt like he was family and she thought he felt it even more than her because maybe he still saw the little girl she hadn’t been for several years. She felt it got worse when they both survived the battle. She knew that however much she felt for him emotionally it wasn’t enough to overcome her aversion to the idea of marriage and children.

Sandor Clegane told her not to become obsessed with revenge and then went off and died precisely because he was. She’s come to realise he was no worse than her, that they had a lot in common. That frightens her, he couldn’t drop his obsession and it frightens her in case she’s already too far gone as well. She wants to believe in a happy ending, but she has no idea what her happy ending can be, she just knows it won’t be found in a life of eternal killing.

Her family are scared of her and what she’s become. She said this on day one and she came back to it later, then quickly moved on. I think that’s what hurts most. Even if she was badly abused in the brothel it was by people who might be expected to abuse her and she’s had her revenge; her family ought to love her and they don’t and she didn’t see how she could take revenge either.

She’s vague about her age, claiming she lost track of time. She likes to imply she’s about eighteen, but my guess would be nearer fourteen or fifteen. I think that she’s doing it to try and get a bit more respect.


	7. Oldtown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We move the ship and the plot along.

We ran downwind into Oldtown a couple of days ahead of my expectations. As I’d been told things had been arranged so it didn’t take us long to replenish the food. I’d talked it through with the two mates Piot and Adulf before we’d arrived. The wood for the stove took up too much room. We were agreed we’d only forty days if we took wood to eat hot food, but could manage sixty if we left most of the wood out and accepted that we’d be living on cold food most of the way. As a result we packed more cheese than I’d normally carry and less meat and lots of pickled cabbage. We’d been at sea for a month and no had shown any signs of scurvy so I was sure that it was a good idea.

It was a busy time and Arya just wasn’t big enough to carry the sack and barrels of food into the hold so when she’d asked permission to go ashore I’d just said yes and let her go. It was therefore a bit of a surprise when she arrived back in the middle of loading with a collection of people in tow. I went down the gangplank and met her on the dockside. “Good to see you back, you’ve brought some friends”.

“No skipper I’ve brought a carpenter, a jeweller, a dressmaker and two porters”. I pointed out each individual as I named them and they all bowed to the skipper as I’d requested of them before we’d approached the ship.

“And we would want them because….”

“Simple, the jeweller and the dressmaker will be taking all my court clothing and the chest off my hands, highest bidder wins, or they come to an arrangement, whichever. The porters” here I indicated a large wrapped shape they had by this time lowered to the ground “have my new chair. I couldn’t get an exact match for yours but they will go well enough together and I won’t have to perch on a stool. Which brings me to the final point, the carpenter; I appreciate why I can’t use the heads in the fo’c’sle but I’m sick of perching over a bucket. One day it’s going to move suddenly with the ship and we’re” I stressed ‘we’re’ to try and reinforce my point “we’re going to have to clean a stinking mess up. Cabbage, may be good for me but the end product of a surfeit of it is foul. So the carpenter is going to build me an extension on my cabin, it will fold in for foul weather and to keep us watertight and we’ve agreed that a good layer of pitch down the side under it should prevent things sticking. If he builds it a bit larger than I need I’ve no doubt you can use it too”. This, I was hoping, was my clinching argument, Stanson felt he couldn’t use the heads while I had to use the bucket and I heard some choice words a couple of times through the curtain that indicated he wasn’t happy with the system, but if I had my own fittings he could use them or more likely just go forrard without worrying I would feel I was getting literally the shitty end of the stick. “I shall of course pay for this; if the jewels and dresses don’t cover the cost, I have the gold in my chest.

I was literally speechless; she thought she could turn up like this with some second rate cabinet maker and chop holes in my ship. I faced the carpenter “Ever done this before; to a seagoing ship that’s about to sail off the end of the world, not some wattle and daub upper story of a townhouse”.

“He’s the best shipwright in Oldtown captain. I would have thought you’d realised I don’t deal with fools by now. We have discussed the job at length and he is confident he can have the work completed in two days and with no loss of strength in the hull. My cabin is as far above the waterline as anything gets and as you yourself observed no ship is waterproof”.

I noted the use of Captain, she was angry with me and yes I was sure she’d thought it through but she might have mentioned it first. “Go on then let’s give it a try. I still think it might have been discussed first, but what’s done is done”. I turned to the carpenter/shipwright “You’ll have drawings I shall see and agree before you start, but unless they show you don’t know your ribs from your keel you may complete the work Lady Stark requires”. His eyes opened a bit as I dropped her name in. I didn’t think she’d told him who she was; still he was committed, too late to back out now without causing even more offence. I turned back to Arya “As milady wishes it shall be done, but can we deal with the dresses here to avoid getting in the way of the men loading any more than necessary”.

Sarcastic bastard “Of course, once the chair is in place these men can bring the chest back with them”. I turned to the two expectant purchasers, “If you would be so kind as to wait here I’ll return in a few minutes with the goods”. I indicated that the carpenter was to follow me as well as the porters and we went past Stanson onto the Petrel.

I stepped back from the gangplank to let her through. There was a bit of me that wanted to be mad she hadn’t asked, but it was getting overruled by the bit that realised that everything she’d done made sense. Even on board ship in my environment I would be a fool if I underestimated her.

The work took a day longer than planned, we dropped any idea of it opening or closing and I kept it small by confirming that it should be no larger than she needed; I’d just go to the main heads; but when it was finished she had a perfectly serviceable castle garderobe and an internal folding panel/door to shut herself behind. We removed the curtain and timber under the table and were both pleasantly surprised how much space that created even after she’d installed her chair; which to no one’s surprise was just that bit larger than mine. I had the last laugh over that though when it became obvious her legs didn’t quite reach the floor when she sat in it.

The crew didn’t mind the loss of a day; they all got time for a ‘last’ run ashore or two; in fact a couple of them were so enthusiastic that they had to be brought back over other people’s shoulders, but they all came back, no one disappeared leaving me short-handed. Along with getting rid of the large chest and all the clothes she didn’t want Arya made a healthy profit even after paying the shipwright. Some of the jewels were apparently worth more than even she’d realised. We ended up with a small chest full of gold coin and one large blue gem that apparently no one could afford. She joked that I could use it to buy her out of slavery if the need ever arose and I suggested it would be a fool who would buy her as a slave; so the issue of Captain and Milady had become just more water under the keel.

And so we sailed from Oldtown at the start of our real voyage of discovery. Getting out of Oldtown into the open sea involved a lot of tacking across the estuary into a head wind but once we were out we turned West North West and ploughed into a heavy sea. No one looked back; it was going dark anyway so I don’t know when we lost sight of land. It didn’t really matter it was the next time we’d see land ahead of us that counted.

I did look back, but I made sure the skipper didn’t see me. Then I wished I hadn’t. He was right the voyage was the thing, arriving was always an anti-climax and thinking about what I as leaving behind, and why, sucked any pleasure out of life so why do it. It didn’t matter why I was on the ship what mattered was standing my watch, earning the respect of the crew, yes and of Stanson, and looking forward to what new sights tomorrow would bring.


	8. Sailing West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About people's relationships

We set off West, one long port tack as hard in the wind as we could sail to maximise our western mileage. Marcus said he knew we were also drifting south in the currents but we’d agreed it was the best course. Life became very monotonous, watch on watch off. Our daily routine in the cabin became equally settled. We shared the cabin; any need for a curtain had disappeared before we reached Oldtown. In what I might otherwise have derided as false modesty we always undressed facing our own cot and we always used our own door so I don’t think either of us saw the others genitals in weeks and if there was an inadvertent flash it wasn’t remarked on. My privy fold round door afforded me enough privacy if I needed it for whatever reason and we both gave each other some time alone most evenings. Marcus never said it but I’m sure he felt he’d achieved something by this and it was true that I had become more relaxed in his company than I was with other men, for that matter with other people; but I felt it was precisely because he left me alone in lots of ways I didn’t think any other man would. In one sense that was good, but why was it so easy for him; was it just the benefit of old age, or was it that there was something about me he just didn’t like. 

Our living arrangements caused a huge variety of reactions in the fo’c’sle varying from the obvious - we were now lovers; through the ridiculous - I’d in some way ensorcelled him and he was my slave; to the slightly derisively amused - what sort of people were we if we weren’t, as I heard one crewman put it, ‘Shagging like rabbits’. Some things hadn’t changed and I heard this remark in the standard way of a conversation held six feet behind my back when I was busy. I nearly responded by asking them what they would be planning to do with the resulting baby, but it occurred to me that it took nine months to give birth and we’d no more than two months food on board so actually we would have to make landfall before I’d even begun to seriously swell.

I’d pretty much finished telling my life story to Marcus before we reached Oldtown so I decided I was entitled to ask him about his. The answers I got were so banal that I thought he had to be fobbing me off. It was an aristocratic cliché that the small folk’s lives consisted of getting up in the morning, working all day and going back to bed at night, interspersed only with random acts of sex or violence and I challenged him from that viewpoint. He replied that of course there was lots of detail but he wasn’t going through it all day by day as that would bore me. He said I needed to ask him specific questions about things that interested me in his life. That was embarrassing because I realised that I wasn’t interested in most of his life, which made me feel shallow and just like the entitled aristocrat I was but didn’t want to be. I didn’t write these conversations down in the detail he did but I do remember a discussion about this point.

“I feel like I’m treating you like someone who doesn’t matter and that doesn’t make me feel good. However much my sister paid you for this trip you’re not my servant. I know you know that but I think any normal person would be interested in you if they had to spend this much time in such close company”.

“So you’re not interested in me, you’re interested in appearing normal to me. That seems something different entirely”. 

“But isn’t it the same thing, don’t we all want to appear normal because then we fit in”.

“That’s true, but what if a specific person isn’t normal, not because of who they are but because of what they’ve learned and how they’ve learned it. If you’re saying that they have to pretend to be normal to fit in then surely you should have pretended to want babies got married and you’d have fitted in where your family expected you to fit in. You didn’t and I’m pretty sure you were right not to”.

Definitive approval, that was unusual for him, still it was nice as well. “So you’re admitting I’m not normal. You’ve avoided saying that for a long time but now you’re admitting it”.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as normal. I think that’s the big problem people have with each other. We all want everyone else to be like us, or to conform to some expectation of ours of how they should be”. 

“So I’m not normal but no one else is either”.

“Yes”.

“OK, so if no one is normal then you aren’t normal and I want to know in what ways you aren’t normal”.

“Too easy and you won’t like the answer, I’m far too inclined to do what seems right to me regardless of what other people think”.

“Why”.

“I don’t know”.

“Seriously, that’s not just an end of discussion line like ‘the weather is what the weather is’”.

“No very seriously, over the years it hasn’t made my life easy. If I understood why I was like this I might try and do something about it. You could say it’s arrogance because I always think my way is the best way, but I’d just move the question forward and say what makes me arrogant”. 

“But you’ve told me I don’t have to remain the person I am now, couldn’t you change too”. 

“I could and over the years I’ve learned to say less that might upset people so I have changed, but like you and, at the moment, babies there are limits. In one way I’m not being honest saying I don’t know why I’m like this, I do, I take after my father, he was the same. So like breeding big cattle from a particularly big bull I’m true to type; but that doesn’t answer the real question it just shifts it to my father”. 

I didn’t like the way he’d said ‘at the moment’ about babies, but I’d let that slide because it was a distraction. “So to go back to my first question then, I’m interested in why you’re not normal”. 

“And I’ve answered it as best I can and it’s a fair question even if you didn’t ask it directly. I think if you want to know more about me you should ask me when I tell you to do things why I did; maybe not at the time on deck but later in here”. 

“Fair enough but that makes it easy for you to keep big parts of yourself hidden by just not letting it get into the things we need to do to sail the ship. What about those other things”. 

“Then you have to work out what those things are and you have to frame a question that I can reasonably be expected to answer, because I can’t explain a lot more of life than I can. You’re not a fool, if something about me matters to you you’ll realise it and you can ask. If you have some vague feeling you don’t understand me but can’t put it into a question then it either doesn’t matter or I probably don’t know the answer anyway”. 

I realised I did have a question, ‘why are you taking all this time with me’, but I also realised I was afraid of the answer he might give me so it remained unasked. 

Looking back on that conversation I also realise that it was more about me than him. He was good at that, turning your questions back on you. It makes me wonder if even now I ever really knew Marcus Stanson, but then he’d probably have said something about him not really knowing himself. 


	9. Confessions of a Nosey Parker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do something I feel guilty about

I didn’t want to but I had to do it. It had taken me three days to come to this conclusion but it was niggling me inside my head and what was the worst he could do, shout at me. No I knew the answer to that he could be ‘sad because you’ve betrayed my trust in you’, which was actually infinitely worse because it was true. “Skipper I’ve got a confession to make”.

“I didn’t think the Old Gods did confession, that’s a Seven thing isn’t it”.

“No I don’t need to confess to the Gods I need to confess to you” he wasn’t making this any easier.

“Then you need to tell me something. I don’t take confession and I don’t give absolution afterwards. If you’ve done something wrong I will punish you as master of this ship as I see fit. You will then either learn your lesson, or I will have to repeat the process with a more serve punishment”.

“Just what sort of punishment are we talking about here”.

That stopped her short didn’t it. “Well as far as I know the crew are all still alive so I don’t have to hang you from the yardarm, so the worst it will be is a flogging from Piot, for that you’ve deliberately spoiled our food and water, or attempted to get the crew to mutiny”. 

“This is more personal, between you and me”. 

“Then I’m probably going to give you my worst ‘Grandad is upset’ look, if it’s really serious you may get the ‘that’s disappointing’ speech”.

“That’s the one I’m afraid of”. 

“Why”. 

“Because I know you’re trying to be good to me etc. etc. and I think I’ve let you down”. 

“Did this happen three days ago”. 

“Yes”. 

I thought you’d gone quiet for a reason”. 

“Gods was I that transparent to him. “So much for the faceless assassin that no one sees through then”. 

“Oh I’m sure if you felt I deserved killing you’d be fine, but you obviously don’t feel what you did was justified, hence the three days to pluck up courage to own up and the use of the phrase confession. You’ve already made yourself suffer for three days, now you’re telling me I assume you’re not planning to do it again, so my first question would be do I have to even know”. 

Tricky question that one, shit in for a penny “Yes, because if you know I won’t be tempted to do it again; at least I don’t think I’ll need to, but if I don’t tell you then I might be tempted”. 

Interesting, that really gave only one sensible answer so did I tell her I’d worked it out or did I make her tell me. “Well I think that gives me the answer, but just in case I’m wrong you might as well tell me. I’d hate to think you’d done something trivial only to find out you’d actually done something more serious”. 

Was it that obvious, or was he playing with me. “So what would be serious”. 

“The two obvious problems masters get is disaffected crew members bringing them their food from the galley who either spit in it, or worse”. 

“Eugh NO! do you think I’d do that”. 

“Not at all. So why don’t we stop dancing around and you tell me. It was your intention to do so and I think you will feel better for having said it yourself”. 

“I went through your belongings”. 

“And, you aren’t bothered that you now know I only own three shirts and never wear the best one on ship”. 

“I found a book and I read it and before you interrupt let me get this said, it was a book of stories and they were about people having sex”. 

“The skipper’s smutty books”. 

“Well I wouldn’t necessarily use that term”. 

There are some verbs that change meaning depending on who they apply to; ‘I’ read erotic literature, ‘you’ read smutty books and ‘they’ read perverted pornography, so to you…”. 

“Well whatever they are I went nosing through your things I found a book and I read part of it and I know I shouldn’t have so I’m sorry”. 

“But by your own admission if I don’t let you read it you may go nosing again”. 

Yes, I had already admitted that “Mmm”. 

“Last question; why did you go through my things; did you set out to find that sort of book or was a general search that just happened to stop when it got to that book”. 

“By the Gods skipper you don’t let go once you’ve bitten do you”. 

“I didn’t think I’d bitten, but if you do then I withdraw the question”.

“No it’s a fair one, because if I wasn’t looking for that what was I looking for. The problem is I’m not sure of the answer. Yes I think I thought you might have something like that on board but I’m not sure if that wasn’t just an excuse to go through your things”. 

“You have dug yourself a hole here haven’t you and in your mind you’re still digging. You need to think about that later, by yourself not involving me until you think you have an answer. In the meantime I’m not bothered about what you did because I’ve got nothing to hide from you”. 

“Thank you” was I off the hook that easily. 

“But I’m slightly bothered that you didn’t just ask me, did I have a book of sexual stories and could you borrow it, because that says there are still elements of trust between us that are missing”. 

No I wasn’t; we were back to the trust thing again. 

“Suppose it was your sister Sansa, would you have just asked her, or Gendry, anyone”. 

“When I was younger I’d have asked Sansa, although I might have expected her to say I was too young. Gendry, Gods no, what sort of girl would he have thought me”. 

“So you were prepared to have sex with a man but you weren’t prepared to talk to him about sex”. 

“I think that applies to a lot of girls”. 

“I’m sure it does, my question is; is that a good thing, shouldn’t we be more prepared to talk about sex before we do it. How many mistakes could we avoid”. 

“Sometime you don’t seem to understand the real world at all. It just isn’t like that”. 

“But that’s because you’re all brought up that it isn’t like that. What if we raised all girls and thus all women to talk about sex. Ask yourself how many frightened brides have gone to their beds not knowing what was coming next and in particular that they could and should enjoy it. Enough of that though let’s get back to the initial matter. Do you have a request to make of me”. 

He looked me straight in the eye; it was a blatant challenge had I got the guts to ask him outright. Funnily that made it easier “Skipper may I borrow, your book of sex stories”. 

“Of course you can. You know where it is and I have no objection to you getting it out when you want it. See; trust it’s not that hard”. 

Easy for him to say. 

“And in reality no, I’m not surprised you didn’t ask me to my face”. 

“You’re so terribly practical, did your wife ever accuse you of being unromantic”. 

“Yes, not often, but occasionally if a discussion like this came up”. 

“Skipper do you want to have sex with me”. Gods! did I just say that, where did that come from. 

“Yes and no”. I paused, does she want to carry on this conversation or was that a few words that had just slipped out. 

Well I’d started so I might as well finish, as the old joke goes. “I know we can’t do it now, here, but suppose we get to the other side and it’s all milk and honey and a life of luxury”. 

“Then I’d be surprised if you’d still wanted to have sex with me”. 

“Why, I’m sure you can still manage it”. 

“Oh I can still manage it, but sex means babies and even if you decided you wanted babies, you need a father to bring them up. I’m not sure I’ve got enough time left in me to see another generation of babies grown up”. 

That wasn’t the answer I wanted, he was being practical again “What I really mean is am I good enough to get you interested”. 

Whoa, was she really that unsure of herself. “Arya Stark you are one of the half dozen most beautiful women I’ve ever seen”. 

“I’m short, I’ve got no boobs, massive bushy eyebrows and a horseface”. 

“You’re petite, my wife was no taller than you, your breasts are young and perky not massive saggy melons, you do not have a horseface, when you smile or grin you’re very attractive even with your hair pulled back, let it down and let it cascade round our face”. What the hell, I reached out and slid the thong that held her hair off, it was only a bit of leather, and fluffed her hair round her face. “Genuinely beautiful”. 

He let my hair down, I didn’t realise how it had grown on the voyage, it was down to my boobs. I didn’t try and stop him, I didn’t want to try and stop him. 

I looked into her eyes, her pupils were dilated, she was getting aroused, she wasn’t the only one. Time to back off before we got too deeply into this. I took my hands away and backed away from her. 

I realised I was just sitting there panting slightly, was it this easy for a man to get me aroused. 

“I think I’ve made my point, now before either of us does something we’ll regret, I’ll go for a walk up top, and when I come back I’d be obliged if you’d go for one too. 


	10. Go on  then let's talk about it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexually explicit discussions.

“Skipper, you know you said I should talk about sex more before I actually did it”.

“Yes”. 

“Well can I talk about it with you”. 

“Yes”. 

I hadn’t thought it would be that easy. I hadn’t exactly prepared a list of questions. So do what he always does make it his turn. “What sort of sex do you enjoy”. Yes that was a reasonable question really. 

“It’s easier if I tell you what sort of sex I don’t like, and the answer is the sort where one or more participants don’t want it to be happening. A lot of boys and men make assumptions about girls and women wanting sex when they don’t. We don’t think that you have to consider getting pregnant, it too easy to see it as not our problem. As to how it gets doe same principle if everyone playing agrees the rules it’s alright. You must have come across people in the brothel who had strange desires, if one of the girls was willing to play along fine”. 

“What about brothels”. 

“Brothels are tricky, because in an ideal world all the girls in them would be willingly participating, but we both know that isn’t true. Then you can get into a serious discussion about degrees of coercion; if a woman can make more in a brothel than she can begging, or she thinks it’s easier maybe even safer; then is she being coerced or is she making a simple choice. I’d be unhappy to see you forced into a marriage to a prince, however attractive many people would see it, if you didn’t agree”. 

This wasn’t how I’d meant the discussion to go “You’re getting all clever words again skipper, back to the point”. 

Well that was direct so time to trust her a bit “Well you do, but so do a lot of other girls and women nowhere near as good looking as you are”. 

“You’re going to tell me men are picky aren’t you”. 

“I don’t need to, you know that. If it’s breathing and looks like it’s old enough. You know the law in Westeros, if a girl’s flowered then she’s marriageable and by assumption beddable by her husband. According to the law no one has sex outside marriage, but we small folk know that even you lot are lying about that. It’s not perfect some young girls might not really understand what they’re being asked to do, the idea that just because you’re married it’s all right is wrong. You on the other hand have barely flowered and I’m sure you know what you want and how to get it”. 

I was glad he’d stuck that last bit in, but he was still doing his usual no direct answers. “So describe your perfect woman to me”. 

“Small slim, young, perky little breasts, nice firm bum, red hair and most important of all has an itch that she wants me to scratch”. 

By the Old Gods; was that it all I needed, a bottle of henna for my hair. “So a petite version of my sister”. 

“No a red headed version of you, because your sister wouldn’t want me. To stay in power I suspect your sister is going to lead a very frustrated life in that respect, but even if she didn’t she wouldn’t want me. Of course once we’re off this ship I suspect your attraction for me, if it exists now, will decline quite rapidly”. 

Play it cool girl, ‘if it exists now’ I can feel strange sensation s in my guts just thinking about him saying that. “So when we get to dry land how are you going to seduce me”. 

“I’m not, because as I said I think you’ll not be so keen and if you are I’m sure you won’t hesitate to tell me so I’ll take a relaxed attitude and see what you do about it. You like to be in charge, I think it would appeal to you”. 

He was right it was starting to appeal to me now, the ideal of pushing him onto the bed and going a lot further than was wise. “Suppose I asked you take the lead”. 

“Slowly then, the bigger the build-up the better the end result. Too many men let themselves get overexcited and they’re finished before the woman is. It’s easier when you get older, things slow down a bit, but first time with someone as attractive as you might be different, so I’d want to spend some time making sure you’d enjoyed yourself a couple of times. Think of it as a large banquet, you don’t start with the venison and beef do you, a bit of fish a few game birds, so a bit of teasing and titillation first”. 

Him talking about it was getting teasing enough for me. Then the ship’s bell went; Damn we were on watch. 

Saved by the bell. I’d realised she was starting to get a bit overexcited but I couldn’t quite work out how to stop without being rude; now it was easy “Arya, up in the crow’s nest with you, sharp now”. I followed her out onto the deck to take command from Piot. She went up the rigging like a ferret down a rabbit hole and disappeared into the half barrel shape that was the crow’s nest. 

She came down four hours later. I don’t usually leave anyone up there for more than a couple of hours but she shouted down she was fine and then it started to rain so no one was volunteering to go up to replace her.

The rain was alright, it was only light and the weather was already getting warmer as we moved further south with the current. By the time I came down my gear would all be conveniently wet.

We went off watch and into out cabin. We both needed to get dry so we started to undress and I was pleased to see she’d turned her back to me like we normally did. 

“Skipper I think we’ve talked enough about sex for a while, don’t you”. 

“Yes I think you’re right”. I was relieved and pleased she’d taken the lead in making the suggestion. 

“I can still borrow the book though”. 

“Of course”. 

That was the best way. It didn’t take me long to work out which bits of the book were the most dog-eared, which meant those were the ones he read most. A couple of them weren’t quite what I’d expected but there was nothing there that bothered me. What frightened me more was how easily I’d gotten into a position where I was seriously thinking about having sex with a sixty something year old man, on a boat in the middle of a very large sea going who knows where. Something was clearly happening to me. When we’d established privacy time on the way to Oldtown I’d considered it was largely for Stanson’s benefit. Was it just the warmer weather or was I changing and if I was changing was I just growing up or was I actually starting to become attached to, and more to the point aroused by, a man old enough to be my Grandfather. So was I just growing up; I’d had a little evidence just after we’d left Oldtown; since then nothing more. I spent some time having a look at my body, my boobs were a little bit saggy, my ribs more visible so I was obviously losing a bit of weight. The hair between my legs was still more what the brothel girls called ‘maiden down’ than the thick curls the older women had. Well if the weather is what the weather is then my urges were what my urges were; Gods I was even starting to think like him!


	11. Becalmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We need to move the plot along if not the ship.
> 
> A very minor incident of nudity, some swearing mentioned

We’d been at sea for nearly five weeks and were making good speed when I went off watch so it was surprising to hear a lot of shouting on deck. By the time I got out of the door we were swinging round, I heard the instruction to the tillerman to take a Northerly bearing. I looked up expecting to see the sail filling with the wind nearly fully behind it, but instead was confronted with a sail starting to flap as the wind died. In about 10 minutes we lost all way and the ship was becalmed on a glassy stretch of water. I climbed to just short of the Crow’s nest, away to the north you could just see the sea surface rippling as the last of the breeze disturbed the surface, but in minutes the effect had gone, we were surrounded by dead water.

I’d seen the skipper curse in a sort of lackadaisical way, it was what sailors did, but this was different, he was stamping around in the aftercastle using words I’d never heard before and a lot I had endlessly repetitively and angrily. I looked at Haerd who was stood at the bottom of the steps to the aftercastle. He looked at me and grinned “He’ll calm down in a minute, just let him work it out of his system”. Eventually the stream of abuse stopped, there was five minutes of total silence and then the skipper came back down.

“Am I allowed on my own deck then Haerd”.

Haerd didn’t seem perturbed by the question, “As long as you’re done with the bad language, her ladyship is mightily upset her being well-bred and of a sensitive disposition”. Stanson turned to face me.

“My lady I do most humbly apologise and beg your forgiveness for my outbreak of uncourtly address”, I threw in my best grovelling bow for good measure.

Haerd’s eyes were on me and just for once in his life he looked serious. I wasn’t certain but I thought this meant I should take the whole thing seriously too. “Your apology is accepted sir, may I know the reason for such a profane outburst”. He slumped onto the bottom step, which uncharacteristically left him looking up at me.

“I may just have killed you, and I might add, the rest of us”.

He said it with such a tone of finality that I realised this was not a joke. “We’re becalmed, which I presume is the cause of your concern. You expect this to last more than a few hours”. I’d learned the wind strength varied even in what the skipper referred to as the trade winds, due to their predictability so I presumed at some point it would return.

“Yes, I’m probably over reacting but I once came across a ship drifting in from the West. Not a Westeros vessel, something from a long way South of us. The crew were still on board, dead and dried out. The captain’s rutters were in his cabin. I got the last few pages translated; they’d been becalmed for 30 days and simply run out of water”.

“Well let’s look at this practically, we’re probably going to run out of food or water someday, does it matter whether it’s while sailing at full speed, or being becalmed”.

I’d forgotten the killer in her. We’d started to get along, I think she had started to trust me and I’d certainly felt that maybe she was changing a little, but this brought us back to square one. Every man must die and who really cares. “Well Arya, irrational as it seems I want to sail to my death not float there with no wind behind me. We’re all called sailors not drifters. Maybe you’re not quite one of us yet”.

That stung, I’d been making a big effort to fit in and to be useful, to be one of the crew and he was saying I wasn’t. “I don’t think I’ll ever be entirely one of you, I hope I may become a sailor one day but I know I’ll always be a sailor and an assassin, and some other things beside. You may have gone from your mother to the sea and really nowhere else, but I haven’t and I can’t forget. I don’t want to forget the other things I’ve done; they’re a part of me. I’m not saying it’s wrong you’ve been nothing else but a sailor, you’re probably very lucky, but you’re not me”.

“True and you’re right, I’m the one who hasn’t had the trouble you have in my life, but it does matter. It also matter because we’ve come this far South and we could have stayed further North and been at less risk of running out of wind. So in a way this is my fault, hence my shouting and swearing. Still what’s done is done and it’s not worth any more argument”.

“So what do we do now”.

“Can you swim”.

“Yes”.

“Then throw the ladder down the side and have what might be the only bath you’ll get this trip. The lads can go over the other rail, but give me a shout when you want come back up and I’ll have a cloak on the side for you”.

“And if the wind gets back up”.

“Oh I think we can hang around long enough to pull you back on board”.

“Kind of you to be so considerate; I’d have thought it was the ideal way to ‘lose’ me”.

“You know, stupid as it seems, I’ve decided that it’s worth the effort to make sure we either die together on this trip or we don’t die at all”.

He kept saying things like that and I was fairly sure he meant them. Sometimes I wished I could be so willing to commit myself to someone else’s future.

I kept my clothes on. As we’d moved south the leather gear had become totally unsuitable so I’d just taken it off and worn a shirt with a belt round it. Then someone mentioned aloft and I realised I was in no condition to have anyone below me and looking up. Piot was my rescuer, lending me something he called a ‘hussif’ containing sewing gear, crude and thick thread definitely not embroidery standard but good enough for me to rip a pair of shirts apart and cut and sew the bits back together to make two pairs of pants, nothing clever, two tubular legs long enough for modesty into a body that came to my waist and tied together with some tape and my best reef knot. The only thing I took off was my belt and knife, no need for it and no point in risking it coming out and me losing it.

I climbed down the rope ladder and eased myself in to the water. It was warm almost luxuriously so. There was nowhere to go so I just trod water gently, floated on my back for a while trod water a bit more. I could hear yelling and shouting from the far side. It was obvious some of the crew were in the water there enjoying themselves. I thought about the concept of ‘bathe’ and rubbed my hands over myself. Nothing seemed to be actually coming off but I suppose when I got out I would have removed a layer of the sweat and body oil so I was probably cleaned in some sort of non-specific way. The ship was getting slowly slightly further away from me. Somewhere in my mind a lesson on currents told me this meant we were probably still moving despite the lack of wind. It then occurred to me that it also meant if I stayed here long enough the ship might drift far enough that I couldn’t reach her so I set off back.

I looked over the side and she seemed to be enjoying herself. Then she struck out back towards the Petrel. I picked up the cloak and waited as she came up the ladder. The shirt and shorts she was wearing was stuck to her and not covering much so as she got to the top I swung the cloak out so it went round her shoulders.

“Thank you skipper, your concern is touching; but we appear to have a bit of one sided modesty here”. Two of the crew had come up the opposite side and were standing naked on the deck. Then they realised I was there and scuttled off to the fo’c’sle hands cupped trying to hide themselves from me. Maybe it wasn’t so one sided. 

I could hear feet behind me and could guess what she had seen. I continued to hold the cloak round her until she was firmly on the deck. “I’ve told you before it’s a one sided life, nothing’s fair and you can’t expect it to be”. I got the usual sullen look, but she didn’t bother to argue and went back to her cabin to dress.


	12. Hug me like I've never been hugged before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some plot and a bit of non sexual violence.

We’d been becalmed four days; Stanson said we had to be moving with the current as the ship was very slowly rotating in relation to the sun, but there was nothing to show it, the water was a glassy surface. Without the breeze it was hot and you got sweaty within half an hour of sunrise so we’d all made a habit of swimming sometime in the afternoon. Stanson still insisted on meeting me with a cloak every time I came back on board and the rest of the crew seemed to think this was right and proper, so I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I was floating on my back, not really thinking of anything, vaguely listening to the noises the crew were making on the opposite side when the shouting suddenly seemed to increase and the skipper stuck his head over the rail.

“Get out - Fast”.

I didn’t wait for anything more and struck out for the ships side, but I’d let myself drift a fair way from it and suddenly a large reptile head reared up between me and the ship and then struck at my head. I twisted and pushed my right arm up. It came down on my arm and shoulder, the fangs went in, I tried to poke my finger in its eye but the angle was wrong I hadn’t really got any purchase. I felt the body coil around me as it spun me in the water. Mouth full of water, spit, try and breath in and realise that I can’t its wrapped round me and squeezing.

I saw the head come up from under the boat, rear up and strike at her. Haerd went past me and dived in. I knew he was a better swimmer than me and looked round and grabbed a gaffed boat hook from the stack of tools round the mast.

I could feel myself being squeezed – don’t panic just don’t breath out so it can get a tighter grip. Then a knife appeared and went into its eye. The snake convulsed, twisting in the water several times. I felt for the knife, got it, pulled it out, tested the blade it was a working knife edged on one side only, turn it do the blunt side is towards me and stab/slice across the neck under my right armpit. We came out of the water, I couldn’t help it I had to try and breath, but the grip just got tighter. On the plus side the water was going red, there was a lot of blood, I’d hit something important, now it was a case of who went first but the grip didn’t slacken and my eyes started to see red spots; I thought it might just be me.

I saw Haerd stick his knife in the eye and then get thrown away as the snake spun several times. Then I saw Arya get hold of the knife, pull it out of the eye and slash at the throat. Blood sprayed everywhere and the snake almost leapt out of the water. I launched the spike into its head, it went well in and the gaff caught. I started to pull and yell for some help. Piot and Varda grabbed the base of the pole and we pulled the thing out of the water and onto the deck. It was still thrashing and Arya was still clamped in its coils not moving. We fell on it, probably about six of us, someone handed me a long handled axe, I turned my back to Arya and swung at the snake’s body. It was big but not that big, the axe blade went most of the way through and below the cut the muscles relaxed as the spine was severed. I heard a smashing sound behind me and a piece of reptile jaw flew past my head. I turned round and saw Haerd, dripping wet twist the axe he’d smashed into the side of the upper neck. There was sickening snap and the rest of the head flew off, the rest of the body went limp. Piot and Varda lifted Arya up and away from the snake’s corpse, put her down and started to pump her back assuming she was probably full of water.

I threw up, and then gasped frantically for air and realised I was still alive. I could hear a ragged cheer from the crew and then someone picked me up and carried me into my cabin and put me face down on my cot.

I stood gasping for breath, I’m getting old fighting sea monsters is a game for young men. Since most of the crew were my age we were all a fairly sorry bunch, bent double and gasping for air. I pulled myself upright and looked round; Haerd was coming out of Arya’s cabin. “She’s in her cot and breathing skipper, she’ll be alright for a minute or two”. Reassured I took stock, firstly counted heads, everyone was there, no one appeared to be bleeding, although it was hard to tell as several were covered in snake blood. I asked the obvious question “Everyone all right” and got a chorus of agreement, followed by some choice comments about our age and the inadvisability of further bathing. The corpse lay on deck, I think there was about 20 feet of it and at its thickest point it was probably a foot across. I was about to tell Piot to chuck it all over the side when I saw Arya appear at her cabin door.

I could feel pain in my right shoulder and forearm, looked and saw puncture holes where fangs an inch across had penetrated. Nothing felt numb but I needed to know. I dragged myself up and went back on to the deck. “I want the head and a knife”.

She came across the deck to the top part of the head, took the offered knife from Haerd and sliced delicately down the side of the nostril, turned the blade and flensed the skin away, second cut and a layer of muscle came off. She regarded the view of the exposed flesh carefully, she was clearly studying something. “Looking for something specific”.

“Yes the poison sacs; and there aren’t any. It makes sense, it was clearly a constrictor and at that size there’s plenty of prey in the sea without needing poison.” He looked puzzled so I went on “As an assassin you learn to dissect a dead snake to remove the sacs to get the venom to edge a small blade. Concentrate the venom enough and you can scratch someone and know they’ll be on the floor not moving within 5 minutes”. I got the look I was getting used to, what I called resigned disappointment; again I’d proved that while I might be moving on I was still bringing a mass of baggage with me”.

“Seen what you need to see then before we clear the deck”.

“Yes, thank you”. I stood up and felt myself stagger. The adrenalin had run out and my legs had gone soft underneath me.

She stood and then started to fall over, Haerd and I grabbed an arm each and as I got a look at her injuries I realised she’d probably lost a fair amount of blood. “Back in your cabin Arya, have a lie down and I’ll wrap some cloth round the holes before we stich you up”. She tried to take a few steps as we went but it was mostly our effort got her through the door and into her chair. I sent Haerd to get the fire lit and get some water boiling. We didn’t have much wood left but I wasn’t going to stich her without cleaning the needle and thread. I looked at the holes, two completely thorough her upper right arm from the top jaw and two in her shoulder from the bottom jaw. She’s been lucky to get her arm up, if it had bitten her in the head, she be dead.

He was checking the wounds, massaging them so they bled, which seemed sensible, use the blood to clean out anything that might be in them waiting to rot and cost me an arm. He was hurting me, but with good intent so I did my best not to make a noise and lay still so he could get on with it. He went under my cot and pulled out some linen rags and wrapped them round each wound and used the tapes to tie them off. I couldn’t help laughing when I realised what they were and he gave me a puzzled look. “I don’t suppose my sister imagined that we’d need these for snake bite, when she put them in my luggage”.

“No, but it’s also a good job I put them in here so you kept them”.

“Fair point”.

I’d got her bandaged, now I needed to get just a bit drunk. I knew I had a couple of bottles of Brandy somewhere but they might take some finding. I turned back to my cot shoved the bedding aside and started to dig things out.

He’d done a decent job on my wounds but now why was he rooting around in his stuff. I saw him pull out and black bottle. “We’re going to celebrate are we. I thought you were keeping that until we sighted land”.

“Medicinal use first”. I pulled out the stopped and handed it to her. “Get about half of it down you and leave the rest to wash the wounds”.

I looked at the size of the bottle he’d given me, “Half of this and you’ll have poisoned me. You’re going to stitch the wounds, that’s alright. I’ve had worse, you’ve seen the scars and no one bothered to give me anything before they sewed them together”. I took one mouthful just to show willing, it hit the back of my throat like a knife and I collapsed in a fit of coughing.

I took the bottle as she bent double “It’s probably stronger than you’re used to, we’d normally water it down to drink it”.

I finally got my breath back “All the more reason that was quite enough”. Haerd came into the cabin with a bowl and put it in my cot. Inside was a sailmaking needle and some twine. It was all a lot larger than the had been used on me before, maybe I did want another mouthful of spirit.

She got up onto the table face down so I could get at the holes in her shoulder, Haerd climbed up and half sat on her and held her down and I pulled the boiled needle and twine out and started stitching. She moaned a bit, but pretty much held still as I worked. It wasn’t that long a job, three stiches in each puncture hole and she was done. As long as she didn’t get a fever she’d mend in a couple of weeks. Just about the time we’d run out of food and water. I wiped the surface of the wounds with the brandy, that made her jump and then she slid off the table and across to her cot. She was still quite unsteady on her feet, I wasn’t sure if that was blood loss or she didn’t have a head for drink, but whichever I left her to sleep and went back on deck.


	13. Land Ho!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit more plot, you've got go somewhere eventually

They told me later I’d never had a fever, but when I woke up there were all sorts of weird memories floating around, of Nymeria, of Haerd and Stanson, of looking down on the Petrel from above with no sign of the crew. Elog the second mate was sat in my chair, he offered me some water, fresh water, we hadn’t had fresh water for weeks, where had it come from. I was about to ask but he was already heading out the door “I’ll tell the skipper you’re awake miss” and he was gone. So somethings hadn’t changed. Stanson came into the cabin with a smile on his face.

“Today is definitely a good day”.

“Where did the fresh water come from have we found somewhere”. I realised the boat was rocking gently, we weren’t under way but it wasn’t the motionlessness the flat calm had produced.

“Yes and no. I’m pretty sure we’ve found your three islands, They’re old volcanos, one a fair size the other two barely large enough to say they’re there”.

“Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya, I didn’t think you planned to go that far south”.

“I didn’t, there have to be strong southerly currents, but it makes sense if the previous expedition found them, they probably weren’t trying to go this way either”. 

“How long have I been sleeping”.

“About two days, and pretty deeply, I’ve checked the wounds three times and you haven’t stirred. Everything’s healing well all shades of red and pink, nothing yellow or green or brown”.

“So you’ve been ashore and got some fresh water”.

“Not just water, there’s fresh pork for dinner and breadfruit, ever had breadfruit”.

“No, I assume you pull it off the tree and bake it and it tastes like bread, sounds like the sort of tale sailors make up to gull landsmen in taverns back home”.

“Well you can have some and make your own mind up. I’ve told you before there’s stranger things across the seas than you think you can imagine”.

“Can I go ashore then and have a look”.

“No, it’s pretty much as you described it and that includes the lizard things. They don’t move very fast but there are plenty of them and they hunt in packs so you can stop here where it’s safe. We seem to be able to get ashore for an hour or so then they turn up, coming down the beach trying to cut us off from the boat. One big one even swam out after us. The pig was a bit of luck, the lizards were chasing it and it ran straight at our lads. It’s not very big, more a piglet really, but it will make half a dozen meals each before it’s back to the cheese. Oh and Piot’s watch saw the sister of the snake that had you at sea, up a large tree. He said it looked like it was waiting to drop on anything underneath”.

I shuddered. The snake had been far too near my death for comfort, the memory of the red spots before my eyes and the enclosing darkness came back unbidden and unwanted. Change the subject “I can feel us rocking, has the wind got up”.

“Yes, it started yesterday evening otherwise we’d have drifted past by three or four miles, it’s not much but it’s from the North East so we can make much better time West from here. I’ve sailed to Ebonhead before and the trade winds shift as you get South. If we head just a point south of dead West we’ll get a bit more strength before long. Like I said it’s been a good day, we’ve got food, some fresh water, and you’re looking healthy. By the way you need to make a short visit forrard to say thank you; while you were out they all insisted someone should sit with you so pretty well every one of them has spent a couple of hours by your cot. I knew they’d accepted you as one of us but I didn’t realise you were that popular”.

I faintly remembered a cheer as I’d come round on the deck. Had they all forgotten this was probably a death ride in my name. Still as Stanson had said we were sailors as long as we were going somewhere and what was over the horizon was tomorrow’s problem. “How much longer do you intend to stay here”.

“We’ll be off at dusk, one more run ashore by the off watch to grab a last boat full of food off the trees and if they’ve time refill a water keg. The lizards seem to be getting use to the idea we’re here and turning up faster. Besides the winds there but it’s not strong, I wouldn’t want the doldrums to catch us again; although the currents still Southerly so we’d drift down into the wind”.

Two hours later we were on a broad reach heading dead west on the compass, so according to Stanson’s calculations probably about West South-West and the wind was filling with every hour so by midnight we were making nearly 5 knots.


	14. Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read the title, and there's no time for sex in these situations although under pressure someone may have had a bladder problem.

I’d barely got to sleep when the call went for all hands. I dragged myself out of my cot and shoved my feet into my boots. Despite the hassle of looking after them in the salt air I still couldn’t get used to going barefoot in the rigging. That might have saved my life; by the time I got on deck, most of the crew were on the ratlines and going up. If I’d been quicker I would have been in with them, but as I came out the door Piot yelled at me to loose the weather sheet with him. We took the line, eased off the turns on the belaying pin and started to let the line out as the hands aloft pulled the sail up, keep the tension steady so they didn’t have to deal with an out of control flogging sail, but allow the line out as they took the sail in.

By the time I got hold of the sheet the wind was already blasting past me, the ship was pitching, we were both struggling to do the job and keep one hand on something solid so we didn’t go overboard. Water hit the deck in large waves smashing everything around and as it went back over the side it tried to take the two of us with it. I heard a scream and saw a man fly off the mast and into the water; one down. The sail wasn’t rising anywhere near fast enough, there were two cracks right next to my ears and one of the lashing broken stays clipped my head. The other took Piot full on the side if his head and knocked him out cold. He slumped at my feet. I had to decide fast, get hold of Piot or lose control of the sheet. I grabbed Piot by his leather belt and dragged him to the lee of the ship’s side. The loose sheet ran away and the sail was flogging free, for just a second, then more stays snapped and The timber of the mast started to creak. I could see the men coming back down as fast as they could, everyone had realised the mast was going and no one wanted to be off the deck when it did. 

There was a horrendous crash and the mast splintered about twelve feet off the deck. Everything rained downwards, mast, yard, rigging, sail, people. I crammed myself as close to the rail as I could get to try to use it to protect me from anything heavy. I still had hold of Piot’s belt in my second hand, but he was a lot heavier than me and the pitching deck meant his body kept trying to slide to the other side. I hung no for all I was worth, one hand for Piot, one for me. I had time to think of the number of times I’d been told when aloft, one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself. Well at this point Piot was the ship, my job, keep him on deck in the hopes he was only unconscious and not dead. There was a second of calm and I pulled him closed and got my whole arm through his belt. That was better my fingers would never have held my grip for long, but now I had him half on top of me, half beside me.

I don’t know how long it lasted; I lost tall sense of time, feeling in my arms and water in my bladder. I felt the warmth spreading down my legs and figured no one would ever know since we were all soaked to the skin anyway. I didn’t lose Piot, he was still in his pants, his belt was on his pants and my arm was through his belt. Then just as suddenly as it had started the wind died. 

I could see Arya under the weather rail, hanging on to Piot. She was as safe as anyone on board. I’d gone to the tiller with Aelf and roped the two of us in place. As soon as the mast had come down the wind had swung the boat nose on, that’s why I’d kept the aftercastle but flattened the f’oc’sle above the deck. With no sail the whole ship behaved like a weather vane and naturally swung her bows into the wind, almost always the safest position in a storm. We still worked the tiller to keep her there, but I got to look around, there was smashed work everywhere and bodies in various places, some moving so obvoisuly alive others I wasn’t so sure about. I didn’t try and count heads, the bows were out of site and number could be safely in the fo’c’sle, although there was one body, was it Adath, with his brains all over the deck. I was just wondering how much longer it would last when just as fast as the wind had risen it died. I knew we were almost certainly in the eye and had maybe 5-10 minutes maybe even less to do things before the second half ripped over us again. 

Stanson untied himself from the wheel and came across to me.

“Get Piot and yourself in the cabin and stay there. The wind will be back in minutes and the best thing you can do is keep him and yourself safe in a cot until it’s passed”.

“You’re sure there’s nothing more important I can come back and do”.

“No, there’s not much any of us can do and the more of us under cover the better. Now hurry or it may be too late”.

I got into a half crouch and dragged Piot across the deck. Stanson’s door was the nearer so we went in that and thus his cot was closest. It was now I realised why sometimes the crew just told me to stay away from a job. I got my arms round Piot’s shoulders and heaved, I got him up high enough to go over the edge, but found I had neither the reach nor the strength to get him properly in. I tried to get him onto my shoulder so my legs were doing the work, that was better but as I threw his upper body into the cot my own when with him and I had to dig myself out from underneath him to get back out and lift his feet in as well. For a second I thought about ignoring Stanson and going back out to find someone else to help, then I heard someone shout a warning and the ship tipped violent as the wind hit us from the side and then spun us round. I bounced off the sternpost, cracked my head on the deck above as the ship fell off a wave and landed in a heap on the floor. 

It took two tries to get myself into the cot with Piot and wedge myself so that neither of us moved and got thrown back out. A big wave hit the stern and smashed most of the glass, water poured in across the deck and out the now flogging cabin door. I suddenly realised why there were two handholds one on each side of the cot, if I grabbed both I was a lot more secure. It was at this point that Piot started to moan. Good he was alive; I wasn’t wasting my efforts on a corpse. He started to move around under me, which made keeping hold harder so I yelled “Lie still, you’re making things worse” in his ear. He opened one eye and looked at me, it clearly took him about a minute to process who I was then his eyes widened. Until that moment my position hadn’t really occurred to me but I now realised I was lying on top of him my arms spread-eagled to hold the cot sides and my legs wrapped round his lower body. I knew Piot’s sense of humour so thought I’d get my comment in first. “I know you’ve been dreaming about this moment for weeks, but try not to get too overexcited”. Only the wind was howling in through the broken glass and I realised he hadn’t heard a word. 

Piot twisted his body round and wedged himself further into the corner, then pulled me towards him. I heard “Foot in the hole” and realised if I moved up and used my foot in the side of the cot I could get a grip with my hands further up and we would both be wedged a lot more firmly. We were now both a lot more secure and I had one leg flexing to take the movement of the ship so my shoulders didn’t keeping hitting the hull as often. We stayed there for about another 20 minutes then the pitching steadied out to a point where we both realised we could move around. Piot looked back out of the shattered window. It was still pitch black so I don’t know what he hoped to see but whatever it was it seemed to convince him it was safe to move. He climbed out of the cot and turned to me “Next time you want me in bed with you lass there’s no need to knock me out first, just ask nicely”. Before I could think of anything to reply he was going out the door. I swore to myself, but that was it, timing was everything.

I followed him onto the deck, Stanson was still at the wheel.

The wind had eased, the storm had blown though. I saw Piot come out of the cabin, he didn’t look very steady on his feet but he was up and walking which was good. Arya followed him out, soaking wet but otherwise pretty obviously unharmed. “Piot get forrard and get the uninjured organised to clear the decks. Arya go with him and just count heads, come back to me with how many of us are still here and how many are injured. If Haerd’s on his feet tell him to look to the injured”.

We both made our way over the debris of the mast and rigging, I noticed Piot looked far from steady on his feet and was having trouble getting over things. I made it clear of the wreckage first and got into the fo’c’sle. Elog was coming out with four of the crew so I told him “Skipper wants the all the fit except Haerd aft” and he led them the way I’d come. As they went past I started counting, two at the wheel, five going aft was seven, myself and Piot nine. Piot was stood just my side of the wreckage in a rather ‘what do I do next’ stance so I went back and brought him into the fo’c’sle. Haerd was inside, nine. “Heard I’ve got Piot here, he’s had a bang on the head and while he’s stood up I’m not sure he should be”. Heard turned and looked at Piot, then gently manoeuvred him into a cot, Piot didn’t resist. “How many more in here the skipper wants a headcount”. Heard pointed at three recumbent bodies, plus Haerd himself that made thirteen; but then he said “Don’t count Hrad, he’ll not wake up again, his necks broken”. I realised the man he’d pointed at was apparently looking backwards; shit only twelve then. Suddenly I wanted to be outside in the fresh air, I made it to the side and tried to throw up, but it was hours since supper and there wasn’t anything in my belly so I just retched and heaved for a minute. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies, I’d held some of them as they’d died and it had been my hand doing the killing, why suddenly so squeamish. The realisation hit me hard, these were my friends and there was no revenge to be taken for their lives. We would just have to carry on as best we could without them. ‘Twelve’ I said to myself ‘the skipper needs to know twelve’. I pushed myself away from the rail and made my way back thought the tangle to the wheel. 

I saw her go to the side and throw up. I hadn’t expected that of her. Clearly it also meant we weren’t all safely still aboard. Elog had three men with him and they were starting on cutting a chunk of spar that was on the deck clear of the rigging so we could re-use it. Aelf had the tiller, the wind had dropped away and we weren’t going anywhere so he was fine by himself. Arya was coming astern now so I moved to meet her. 

“Twelve in total skipper, Piot and two others in cots injured with Heard, Hrad’s in the fo’c’sle but he’s dead, so that’s three missing”.

“Adath’s under the lee rail, or what’s left of him is, so that leaves two who probably just came off the mast as it fell”.

A bit of uncomfortable memory came back to me. “I saw someone go overboard from the yard before the mast fell”. I could feel tears running down my face. These men would be on my conscience, this was my trip and they’d paid the price.

I put an arm round her and pulled her close to my side. I knew what she was thinking, I was thinking it too, but I’d had it happen many times before over the years so I might not like the feeling but I knew we had things to do to keep the rest of us alive. “Sailings a bastard of a job Arya, but it’s far too late to wish we weren’t doing it now. Go help Elog, he’ll want lengths of rigging cutting clear and stowing safely so we can re-rig later”. I saw her feel for her knife, it was still there, she looked back up at me and nodded. I released my hold and she walked cross the deck. 

I walked over to Elog wondering how much of a job this really was, but he pointed towards a loose and untangled sheet and told me to start with that one, get to the other end, cut it free if I had to, coil it round my arm and then put it in my cabin, come back pick the next longest I could see and keep going. I got two good lengths of thinner rope, then one of the main mast stays, I couldn’t get that round my arm but I pulled it into a loose pile and then started again pulling it into the cabin. When I came back out Elog shouted me over and pointed me at a bunch of knotted line and told me just to cut the lot where they were attached to the ships side. I don’t suppose when Gendry forged my knife he had this in mind, but it stayed as sharp as a razor and I was sawing through ropes for quite some time. 

At one point we all stopped and stood back. One of the men swung and axe at a main stay that was by this time taught and as the line parted the remains of the mast that had been hung over the side dropped free and was gone taking a lot of sail and rigging with it.

Dawn broke about half an hour later and we all stopped to look round the deck. The mast was a twelve foot stump split down the middle, about a twenty foot length of the main par was down one scupper, about a third of the mainsail was on the other side in a roll and my cabin was half full of coils of line I’d amassed. I looked for the body of Adath under the rail but it wasn’t there. He’d been cleared away, either overboard or into the fo’c’sle.

“All hands go forrad, light the fire and get some hot food down you”. I’d taken the tiller not that there was anything to direct really. The wind after all the violence of last night had dropped. 

I went with everyone else, no one said I shouldn’t. Piot was back on his feet and looking more like he understood what he was doing and he and Haerd were fanning the galley fire to get it going. Elog pulled a bottle from somewhere and pulled the cork. “In memory of those who aren’t here and in thanks that I am” he said and took a swig and passed it to the man next to him, who repeated the toast, drank and passed it to me. I got the words out at the third attempt, and took too big a mouthful and choked on it. Someone took the bottle from my hand and someone else patted me on the back, which probably didn’t actually help, but no one made any sort of comment about me as the bottle continued round. The fire wasn’t drawing well, the wood was sodden, so Piot cursed it fluently once and handed round a tack biscuit each. We didn’t normally eat them dry, they were soaked to soften them, but I just put it between my teeth and gnawed bits off. I probably hadn’t eaten for twelve hours, I’d had virtually no sleep, my head hurt from several hard knocks and my arms had been sawing at rope for the last two hours, but at that moment I was just going to gnaw the biscuit into crumbs, nothing else was registering.

I was about half way down it when I realised someone was shaking my shoulder. I looked up to see Piot in front of me. He motioned me to move sideways and when I had sat down next to me. “I’m not going to make a fuss because I don’t think you’d want that, but you saved my life last night and I want you to know I’ll not forget”. He didn’t wait for me to reply, which was good because I couldn’t have said anything if I’d tried, just got up and went out onto the deck. 

Piot came out of the fo’c’sle and walked back towards me. He looked a lot steadier on his feet than he had a couple of hours ago. He told me they couldn’t get the fire to burn due to the wood being wet. We surveyed the salvage left on deck and discussed options to produce a jury rig. I knew he was coming round to telling me something, but I let him set his own pace. “Your girl” he said eventually; she was always my girl to Piot “she’s a good ‘un. You need to tell her that pretty soon because she’s not in a good place after last night”. I indicated my agreement and he went back to get hands to start fitting the spar to the mast and cutting the remnants of the sail to fit.


	15. Things don't get any better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot moves on even if the ship doesn't.

I sat in the fo’c’sle for quite a while. No one said anything they just left me to myself. Some went out and started work, other were me just sitting. Then the skipper came in.

“Arya I need you aft, Elog said you did a lot of good work clearing the decks and I really need to you to come and help out with the jury rig”.

I pulled myself onto my feet. I felt very tired but I pushed myself to walk after him out of the door. As soon as we were on deck he turned to face me.

“Half of what I said in there is true, Elog thinks you did a good job last night and I saw you with Piot, he’d have gone overboard if you hadn’t hung on to him and he knows it. The other half however was to get you out the door. You look out of your feet, if you want climb over the rigging and get yourself in your bunk”.

“So you don’t want me to help with the jury rig”.

“Yes there are jobs I want you specifically to do because being small will make it a lot easier for the rest of us and I know you’ll do them carefully which is also important, but to do those jobs I need you to be alert and awake, in part for your own safety, so if you need a few hours in your cot first it’s the best way to do things”. I didn’t want to order her, Piot was right she looked in shock, she desperately need sleep, but I knew if I pushed she’d fight me on principle, it had to be her decision. She stood looking at me for a good minute then her body sagged.

“You’re right skipper I need some sleep”. I turned and started towards my cabin door.

“Use my cot, you put all the lines in your side, you’ll spend half an hour clearing it out”.

He was right I changed tack and headed through the right hand door, kicked off my boots and rolled onto his bedding. As soon as I put my head down I realised it smelled pretty strongly, the odour of Marcus Stanson, but then my cot had to be just as bad, you just don’t notice your own smell. However bad it wasn’t it didn’t stop me falling asleep.

It was a good four hours later before she emerged. We’d finally got the fire going and boiled some mutton so the first thing I did was send her to get her share. In the time she’d been asleep I’d had more time to think about how the rigging was going up and my original plan to fix the mast and then use her to go up the mast to set some of the running rigging had been changed. She came back towards me with her bowl of food in her hand.

“Right skipper, let me finish this and I’ll be ready for whatever you need”.

“Don’t rush, while you were asleep I’ve rethought my plan and your daredevil ride to the top of the mast has been replaced by the far more sensible option of fixing everything to the spar first”. I waited to see if this was acceptable.

“You’re the boss”. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not but I also didn’t care, last night had been enough excitement for a while.

That was pleasantly straightforward. Now what did I want her to do, the next job was raising the spar and lashing it to the mast stump. As soon as the ropes took tension she’d be either too short or too lightweight there, but: “Arya take the tiller will you”.

It was silly but I felt excited, “Aye skipper”. I turned and walked back to where Elog was stood put my hands on the tiller pole “I have her”. He nodded, let go and walked forward. It was silly we were going nowhere, there were no sails set and precious little wind to drive them if there had been, but for the first time ever I had the tiller. 

So the four biggest men lifting the half spar that was what was left of the mast, everyone else on a line of some sort, Haerd nearest the mast to exploit his height to the maximum and up it went, actually quite easily. Now lash all the rigging in place and then take cable and go round and round the base of the mast to make it more secure. Ah another opportunity, “Elog take the tiller and send Arya to me please”.

I saw them get the mast up without me but that made sense, size mattered and I hadn’t got it. Then Elog came back to me and sent me to the skipper.

“Right Arya on Haerd’s shoulders, that way we can get the cable up another few feet”.

Haerd was already holding the heavy cable at nearly head height. I came up behind him and was wondering what next when Piot put his cupped hands next to Haerd’s backside. One foot in Piot’s hands, step up then the other over Haerd’s shoulders and I was up sitting round the back of Haered’s neck like I had with my father or Jon when I was two or three years old. Haerd passed the cable to me and I wound it round the mast and spar while someone below walked round the mast with the remaining length. It was harder than I’d realised, the total distance was virtually my full arm extension, the cable was heavy but we got another six turns probably three feet by which time we’d come pretty well to the end of the heavy cable anyway. Now it just had to be lashed in place with something a lot thinner and lighter. They passed the line up to me, but what was I going to do with it.

She was doing really well, now she’d got the lighter line “Start from the middle and come back to yourself both sides, then weave it like half hitches each time you cross it over, when you get to the ends tie it off with the best reef knot you can manage”.

Yes that made sense, but my arms were beginning to ache. Still no stopping now or the cable would just unravel and it would all need doing again. I got the line down to Haerd’s head height not without a couple of ‘Oh gods I’m dropping it’ moments and he reached up and took hold and tied it off. That done he stepped back and bent forward and knelt down so I could go over his head and onto the deck. We both stepped back to admire our work, he was rubbing his neck. I couldn’t resist, “Now after all the times you’ve called me a slip of a lass don’t you dare complain I weigh too much”. He grinned slightly ruefully, but it didn’t stop him using the term about me later in the day.

So we had the best mast we were going to get in place. Enough of the sail had survived to be cut down to make a triangle that would run from the bow to the mast and that was it. The main problem now was the lack of wind. As if last night storm had sucked all the wind out of the local area the sea was calm and the new sail just about drew enough to hold its shape. I could see a wake over the stern, but if we were making a knot I’d be surprised.

Next job. In all the chaos and disaster of the storm the ships boat was still lashed securely over the hold hatch. It was also in one piece, which would shortly become of great importance. “Right lad’s shift the boat and let’s see the state of the hold”. It took no time at all and the hatch was being lifted. I looked in and my heart sank. Inside was total chaos. Normally a cargo ships hold is full and everything gets wedged in against something else, but as ours held nothing but food, water and a small amount of fuel and we were now nearly sixty days out of port it was mostly empty. With hindsight if I’d had everything supplied in barrels however difficult it would have been we could have just kept moving barrels around, but enough of it had come in sacks that as it was eaten the hold had emptied. As a result things had moved in the night and once they’d started moving they’d started breaking. I ordered the crew below with orders to clear out the broken things to the deck, but not put anything overboard, then take an inventory of what was left. It wasn’t as though I was expecting a massive quantity, we’d been at sea too long for that, But I thought we needed at least three or four days’ worth to have any hope of getting far over the horizon.

I hadn’t mentioned it anyone but Piot and couple of the others had been giving me knowing looks for a couple of days. The trade winds had eased and there was just a hint of a morning land breeze and then a sea breeze in the wind patterns and the meant we couldn’t be too far from some sort of shore, and probably something bigger than the three little specks we’d found a few weeks back.

I was one of the first three down into the hold. Although things were broken it was still cramped for space in some directions and I fitted in places and could reach things no one else could. It didn’t take long to identify the problem. Most of what had come loose had been the remaining full water casks. Then their weight had ensured that they’d smashed. We still had food, if not aplenty then for a week maybe more but by the time we’d finished there was one medium size cask of vinegar left.

Well that was that then, enough to drink for two-three days at most, particularly as the falling wind meant increasing heat. It wasn’t really drinking material but everyone turned out their bottles of spirits. Even a few of them had either been consumed or broken. Maybe a final half day getting drunk before the end.

An air of morbid finality settled over the ship. We knew we had to find land fast. The problem was that the winds we were getting were too light to move a ship as big as the Petrel with a sail as small as we had. The skipper called me into the cabin, he had Piot, Elog and Haerd with him so there’d obviously been a discussion of some seriousness.

“Arya we’ve got a plan, the trouble is if it goes wrong the consequences are not going to be good and they’re going to be particularly bad for you”.

“Unless I’m totally misunderstanding our current situation we’re all going to be dead in a few days from lack of water so I’m not too sure the meaning of particularly bad here”.

“It pretty much comes down to will you risk your life alone if it’s the best chance of saving us”.

“You mean I risk my life and you don’t, is this some sort of wind ritual that involves the ritual slaughter of a naked virgin”. I didn’t mean what I was suggesting, but I knew better than anyone that people under extreme pressure will go to extreme lengths to solve the problem.

“No Arya it’s simpler but more complicated than that; besides Piot has made it plain he doesn’t even like my plan because of the situation it puts to you in. If I’d suggested hurting you I think he’d already be pinning my hide to the cabin door as a lesson to others”.

I looked at Piot, he had fear written all over him, now I was getting concerned.

“So to cut to the chase, we think we’re near land, we think the only way to get there however is to rig a sail in the ships boat and send you off on your own to try and make landfall and then get us some help”.

I’d never sailed a small boat in my life, but apart from that, what was the problem. “That sounds fine to me. You’ll need to show me how I manage a smallboat single handed, but what’s the extra risk for me”.

“Simple, there are five options once you set out; One, you reach land and organise a rescue, everyone is saved: Two you reach land they can’t get to us in time, you live we die: Three you get to land there’s no one there so no rescue, we all die and you’re alone in an uninhabited land, maybe you live maybe you die depending on the climate, food and wild animals around: Four you don’t make land, there’s no rescue we all die: Five you don’t make land but by some fluke either we do or we get found by a passing ship, you die we survive. What Piot really doesn’t like is the number of times I say you die and I mean you die alone”. 

I buried my head in my hands and burst into tears. Behind me I heard Haerd’s voice “I told you this wasn’t the way to tell ‘er, she isn’t used to nice. What she wanted was you to chuck her over the side into the boat and just be told to piss off and get on with it”. I turned round and wrapped my arms round his neck and started to laugh hysterically.

I waited for her to calm down. Well Haerd had made his point, Piot and I obviously didn’t understand women as well as he did, although how often he’d met the likes of Arya I couldn’t imagine. She took a few minutes the she let go of Haerd, kissed him on the forehead, wiped her eyes and turned back to the rest of us.

“If you think it’s the best hope for any or all of us then I go. Heard’s right and he’s wrong”, I turned back to look at him again “and I think he knows that but he’s trying to make it easier for me”. I turned back towards Piot. “I’m used to working alone and as an assassin that means facing the risk of dying alone so it’s sweet of you, really sweet of you, but it’s wrong for you to think that would be worse for me. What I think is it will be is worse for you, you’ll be the ones looking at each other and wondering what’s happening to me. I’ll just be sailing a boat until I can’t sail it any further”.

I looked round the table, I think she has us all on the verge of tears. “Right so that’s settled. We need to rig a mast and small sail in the boat, find a small cask so Arya can have her fair share of the last barrel, stuff her full of food so she can last on liquids alone and wait for what we all hope is a seabreeze to set in tomorrow afternoon. Well don’t sit there, Piot sort the boat, Haerd find a cask and share the water out, Elog get back on watch and make sure we don’t hit a reef before we can get the plan working. Arya sit down and I’ll explain why I think we’ve actually got a chance that this plan will work”.

There wasn’t a massive rush but Marcus was right we needed stay busy while we all calmed down a bit. There was a lot of emotion slopping around a group of people who didn’t routinely behave that way. It occurred to me that that was another thing that bound me to these sailors, which was the wrong thought to have at this time. “Right skipper you’ve talked a lot about trade winds but if you mentioned sea breezes I wasn’t listening so where do we start”.

Apparently it’s all about the different rate of heating and cooling of the land and the ocean. As a result near the coast the wind will change depending on the time of day. The senior hands were all agreed that despite the lightness of the wind it was what was happening around us, so I was to be launched, the lightest load, in the ships boat rigged with biggest improvised sail that could be managed. Ideally I as to go off with the wind behind me and there was one school of thought that said I stuck to that plan, but I preferred to stick on a compass bearing so I was reminded of how to turn the sail fore and aft to sail across and even slightly into the wind and it was pointed out that a small boat would heel over with the wind on one beam so I needed to sit as far to one side as I could to counterbalance the force of the wind. Personally even in small boat I didn’t think I’d be going that fast, but apparently as I neared shore the wind might get stronger.

Well we were ready. Piot had actually managed a fearsomely large sail for such a small rowboat, but since the wind was still a zephyr here and there he’d done the right thing. I’d been serious about feeding her up and had sat her in the cabin while she stuffed mutton and biscuit down her face. By the time she demanded we stop before she was sick her belly was sticking out so far she’d eased her belt off and we were all making pregnancy jokes. The early morning wind from the west, which we hoped was the land breeze had dropped so she went into the boat and pushed herself off. She’d made the very sensible point that she might as well row as well as sail so she unshipped the oars and sat down.

“Is this the moment to shout ‘All aboard the skylark’ skipper”.

Gods she’d remember that told joke from the first day we’d met. “No, or we’ll all get in with you” I remembered what Haerd had said in the cabin the day before “Just piss off and don’t come back without a rescue ship with you”.

“Aye Aye Skipper” I bent my back and took a gentle first stroke. I’d never rowed before so this was actually more worrying than the sailing. The boat moved the right way and the oars didn’t fly anywhere stupid, back forward next stroke, the boat was moving now and the effort decreased slightly. Don’t push it. I got about 200 yards from the Petrel and the sail started to very gently fill. I shipped the oars, tightened the sheets and we were easily making 3 knots. I cast a quick look back the Petrel wasn’t moving, the jury rigged sail barely moving. I was on my way.

We watched her go, rowing for a few minutes then the wind came into her sail and she picked up speed. The whole crew were at the side, there was nothing else to do, our sail was not so much as flapping. “All right one man on watch the rest of you under cover, stay out of the sun and try not to drink if you can possibly help it. The one thing we hadn’t told her was that she’d got nearly all the water. We all thought option two was anyone’s best hope so even though she was in an open boat and we’d be in the shade she should be good for two days. I even believed if she found shore but no humans she’d survive.


	16. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well obviously it's the end of something. A juvenile may be slightly culturally sexually inappropriate.

I’d been sailing for a day and a half, my water had all gone several hours ago. I thought I could just see land on the very edge of my vision, but I could feel myself losing consciousness, the small sail was barely drawing, if I was making any way towards the coast it was hard to detect. It was very frustrating to be so close to what we’d come so far to find. I tried to get angry at the stupidity of sailing thousands of miles and falling short by less than twenty, but the energy was ebbing away from me. I could see myself slumping into the bottom of the boat, the sun beating down on my parched body. How could I see myself; it was as though I was floating way above the boat like an eagle or out at sea the Petrel Stanson’s boat was named after. I tried again to pull my attention awake, was I warging into a local seabird to look down on myself dying quietly below. Would I end up the spirit of a lonely seabird, my second life not in Nymeria back in the forests of Westeros, but floating over the sunset sea catching fish.

Then something spoke to me “Is that you, you down in the boat; and if it is what are you doing in my mind. I enter the minds of humans to talk to them, you don’t enter my mind”. “Yes that’s me, I think I’m only here because I’m dying. If I do die I think I might end up in your mind until you die”. “Well that isn’t happening, no human has invade my mind before and you’re stopping here”. I watched as the boat suddenly got a lot larger, the bird was swooping, then I saw the shadow form on the water; by the old gods it wasn’t a bird it was a dragon. My stomach lurched as I went upwards quickly, it nearly shook me back to consciousness and out of the dragon’s mind, but I must have been well on my way to death as I was back watching the sea go back down as we rose above the water with parts of the boat and my limp body in our claws. “My friends, don’t leave my friends” “Your friends, by whom I assume you mean the crew of that battered boat behind you, mean nothing to me. I’m taking you to land so that you can survive and get out of my head”. I’d done it once with Nymeria, imposed my will on hers, I tried to make the dragon turn, suddenly it was like something slapping me time and again. “You can’t do that I will not be controlled by a human”, I felt the wind pick up as we dived to wards the shore and I realised a town, with a harbour. I saw people running to a wide flat area of land to the side of the town and we angled in, slowed suddenly and landed. As we leapt back into the air we could see people lifting my limp body, and carrying ait away. Clearly at this point my mind was staying with the dragon. “Please, I think I’m going to be with you a while until I recover and it won’t aid my recovery if I think my friends are dying when you could help them. Please they mean a lot to me".

Suddenly we were climbing even faster than before, from what seemed to me a massive height we looked and there was the speck of the Petrel. We rose even further and let out a massive bellow. Then we were heading down again speed increasing until we nearly hit the ship, looping back up into the air and letting out a huge gout of flame.

I was under the cover of the aftercastle, keeping out of the sun. There was a speck in the air above us that got bigger very quickly and the shape of a massive dragon, three - four times the size of the Petrel and twice the size of the one that had torched King’s Landing went over us and gave off a massive gout of flame upwards. I waited for the rain of fire to hit the decks, but nothing came down. Haerd and Piot were both with me and we looked at each other, Haerd ever the pragmatist saw the sand run out, flipped it over and rang three bells. I looked up the things was circling above us, it didn’t look so big so it had to be well up in the air. It wasn’t so much a circle as a figure of eight away from us towards where I was hoping the shore would be and back again. Piot voiced my mental question “Is it guiding someone too us”; I shrugged, I was too tired to talk, if the West was full of dragon riders maybe this was the coastal patrol. The trouble was no one from Westeros had any good things to say about Dragons or their riders, so being found by them didn’t seem to offer much. I sat and watched the sands slide though the timer, literally I was watching my life run away before me, but I didn’t have the energy to care.

I’m not quite sure how whether it was an hour or an hour and a half, I think I may have drifted into sleep or unconsciousness, but then I heard a trumpeting sound from ahead of us. I pulled myself up and went to the rail; there was a ship, no two ships coming towards us. Not sailing ships, they were under oars, lots of them in multiple banks. I watched as one ran alongside, the other was starting to turn to come ahead of us, they threw grapnels and dropped a long gangplank from the bow. Men were coming down the gangplank, although they looked like no man I’d seen before but one of them had a waterskin and was offering it to me. I grabbed hold and took a mouthful, water fresh clean water; I kept drinking until I had to stop to breath. Then I had time to look at the men opposite me. Well I’d warned Arya about the strange things we might meet. They were about a foot shorted than me, but probably weighed as much, big wide shoulders, very thick neck, their hair was like a wild animal short, almost a pelt although not quite and appeared to cover most of their bodies. The face though was recognisably human, the language they were speaking was however one I’d never heard before.

Arya, had they found her. How could I ask them; I pointed at myself and held up a finger, then at the thee of us stood together and held up three fingers, the man opposite nodded and repeated my gestures, good he seemed to be in agreement with me. I pointed over the side towards the horizon and then one finger and then back over the side. He watched me and then shouted back to the crew on the main vessel, several sentences were exchanged and he turned back to me and repeated my signals and nodded, then put his hand out at my head height and took it down to his, then repeated the over the side signal. I hoped to any god who would listen that I understood him, they’d found someone and she was small, that had to be Arya.

They were very efficient so I let myself relax as they arranged ropes to the second vessel and started to tow us in. We’d been underway for about half an hour and were making good speed, six to seven knots I estimated, when I realised that they were ignoring me but spending a lot of time with Haerd, effectively treating him like the skipper. I let them get on with it, but it struck me the man making hand signs to Haerd was also the largest of the westerners on board and the man he had been shouting to on their ship had been even bigger, not much taller but a lot heavier built. It looked like size mattered over here, well for now let them get on with it.

Barely had the dragon risen and flared off a gout of flame when I felt myself slipping away from it, my eyesight shimmered and I realised I was being cradled by someone who was gently dribbling water into my mouth. I looked up I was under some sort of simple canopy of thatched large leaves and there was a face looking down at me which had to be the strangest face I’d ever seen. In a way it was attractive and it definitely looked feminine but it was to me unusually round and slightly featureless. The body it was attached to was however even stranger, It was stocky to the point of being musclebound, the head virtually fitted onto the shoulders with no appreciable neck and all the exposed skin was covered in a light layer of brown hair, not thick enough for an animal pelt but far more than any woman I’d ever encountered. I still felt the figure was a female although she was also totally lacking breasts, she had a set of pectoral muscles of a man who worked very hard at lifting. She said nothing and I was too tired to do more than sip the water so I lay in her lap for some time until I saw another woman approaching.

The two of them spoke; nothing made any sense to me so I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. The newcomer nodded at these actions and smiled, then she put her hands on either side of my head and the two of them re-arranged me so I was lying flat on my back with just my head cradled in her hands. The first woman came round to where I could see her, closed her eyes and let her head droop sideways, then opened them and pointed at me and repeated the pantomime. I let my head relax and closed my eyes, I could feel something tickling at my mind, it felt strange invasive. I sat up suddenly and the feeling went away. The woman in front of me shook her head and motioned me back down; she again closed her eyes and let her head flop and pointed at me, then actually put her hands on my eyes and gently closed them. I tried to relax, there was no way I was going to sleep too much was spinning round in my head about the new things I as seeing, but they seemed to want me to try so I tried to think calming thought about a clear blue sky and just lying in the sun. The tickling came back and this time I didn’t fight it; then a voice in my head

“Good girl, relax the more relaxed you are the easier this is for both of us”.

I could understand the voice in my head.

“Yes it’s me, the one behind you holding your head, I’m a dreamspeaker. I can talk to you regardless of the language issue this way. Just stay physically relaxed and try to stay unemotional and think what you want to say”.

“My friends; there are a more people like me in a bigger boat”.

“They’re being brought in to port, the dragon is staying with them until two galleys can row out and tow them back in. I don’t know how you did it but you got the dragon to do what you wanted, they’re not usually in the least bit helpful”.

“I Begged it”

“Her, you begged her, she’ll not be pleased if you refer to her as it. You need to realise that your life depends on her acceptance, setting aside the fact that she could kill you any time she liked any dominant male would kill you for her if she indicated she wanted it. These are the Dragon Lands, we don’t worship her like some strange people’s further West, but we obey her, because we know if we don’t enough of us will die to convince the rest to go back to obeying”.

So these were the Dragon Lands, well that was what was West of Westeros.

“You obviously can’t understand my language, speak to me in yours, just a few sentences then let yourself relax again so I can regain the connection”.

“I’m Arya Stark and I’ve sailed here in a ship form Westeros”. It seemed enough, the look on the face of the woman opposite me made it plain she understood me just as well as I understood her, I was making a noise. I leaned back and let my mind go blank again, it seem to get easier each time.

“Not a word of that made any sense. We’re going to have to communicate this way until you can learn trader. That will irritate the men, they can’t do this, if it weren’t for the dragon we’d probably be ignored, but since this is how she talks to us, they have little choice. Occasionally a man tries to ignore what we say but it’s usually fatal so not often”.

“And the women are never tempted to make something up for their own benefit”.

“Same problem, if the dragon works out you’ve put words in her mouth you’re roast meat, literally. It’s not as though we have a huge role normally. We work in shifts so some of us are always asleep. She tells us when she wants to eat and where, we tell the men and they arrange for the elephants to be in the open field at the right time.”

“She eats elephants”.

“Several at a time”.

“You call yourself a dreamspeaker, but we’re not asleep now”.

“I’m very good, probably one of the best in the Sunrise Islands, I don’t always have to be asleep for her to reach me. I’m really surprised you don’t either, I’m surprised your dragon lets you go wandering across the oceans to strange places”.

“I don’t have a dragon”, I thought for a second about Drogon and the mad Targaryn woman and thought it best to leave her out of things. “We don’t have dragons in the East like you do here”.

“Oh you poor people, who prevents the wars then”.

“I don’t understand, is that what the Dragons do here”.

“Of course, we can’t serve them, breeding their food, clearing the forest so it’s easy for them to eat if we have to worry about wars between peoples. Of course individuals fight for social dominance, but not anything big enough to interrupt the running of the feeding farms or the dragon would interfere”.

“So you’re their slaves”.

“Of course, but it’s a very privileged form of slavery; the Peace of the Dragons. We run our own societies the way we wish, as long as we keep the feeding herds up to strength and the feeding grounds clear and supply the food when required the rest of society can do what it wants safe in the knowledge nothing from outside will interfere. No other race, no other religion, comes here unless it wants to obey our society rules, worship our gods and speak our language. You’ll hear an expression ‘When in Big Port, do as they do in Big Port’. Well I suppose it’s mostly speak our language”.

“Mostly”

“Yes, we trade with other peoples, there’s a common tongue – trader. It’s a very simple language not many words mostly about buying selling or the simple things of life, food, drink, where to find a bed to sleep in, limited grammar so it’s easy to learn. I’ll have to teach you all to speak it, or more practically I’ll teach you and you’ll teach your friends if none of the other women dreamspeak”.

“There are no other women with me, just men. I don’t think any of them are likely to be able to dreamspeak”.

“You came here the only woman in a boat full of males, your dominant male must be huge to have kept the rest of them off you during your fertile period; or can you suppress it with drugs. We can but it makes us very irritable so most of us prefer just to go to lock ourselves indoors for a week”.

I wasn’t entirely sure I was fully understood what she meant by fertile period. Despite the dreamspeak translating for me she seemed to be talking about something that sounded so strange I wasn’t sure I was really getting the true meaning of the words. “I’m quite young; I don’t have to worry about it yet”. It seemed an easy way to get out of what was becoming and awkward conversation. “I feel a lot better than I did, can I have something to eat”.

“Of course you can, I’m chattering on and forgetting my hospitality. We’re going to have to make do with sign language for a while but I’ll start to use trader with you so you can start to learn”.

I stood up and she pointed the way to some simple stone buildings. We went inside and there was food on the table, she waved her hands in an all-encompassing motion and said “foda”, then pointed to some meat “lama”; it looked like lamb, trader seemed to be just a bit closer to my language than hers. I repeated her gestures and words and then took some lama, it tasted like fresh lamb, juicy and without any trace of salt. I’m afraid conversation stopped while I made a pig of myself.

We spent about five hours together, her name sounded like Rodakino, but when we dreamspoke it came across as Peachbumm. She wrote it out on a piece of paper ροδάκινο, that settled we weren’t going to understand each other by writing any time soon either. Later when I finally had enough verbal language to be able to explain this to her she insisted that this was actually her name. She was considered to have a particularly attractive rump during her fertile cycle and as a result had been rechristened at puberty by her male after their first mating. Since this male was then known as Big Balls and later became Silver, the title of the most dominant male in the community, it was something she was particularly proud of. Her juvenile name had been Skinny, which was borderline abuse. As he grew older and was displaced as Silver, Big Balls reduced himself to Balls, but I’m afraid I always referred to him by his previous name; it was an in joke between us which I don’t intend to explain here.

I was fed an interesting mixture of things I recognised, like the lama and things I didn’t that were clearly local warm climate fruits and vegetables that wouldn’t have grown in Westeros. I did wonder if Stanson would recognise any of them from his travels to the Spice Islands or similar hot places. I was taken to a large stone building with a series of large rooms that I’m pretty sure was her house which she shared with a number of women and her dominant male. This male was to be the father of her children when she wanted some and was otherwise her protector, although there didn’t seem to be much for her to be protected from. The house had a bathroom and I was encouraged to clean myself up. Several other women were with us, it was clear communal bathing was the norm by the size of the room and the pool of water we used after we’d soaped ourselves down. There was a bit of pointing and chattering when I took my clothes off, it was obvious my breasts, small as they were, were a novelty for them. The water was warm but not hot, and there was a ledge to sit on that left you pretty well fully immersed. The effect was quite soporific and it was clear we were all going to just sit here and soak for a while. Normally this was the sort of thing I considered ‘girly’ behaviour and I got itchy feet and wanted be off, but it had been a hard day and it seemed quite pleasant to just soak and dose. A while passed and then there was a lot of noise outside and a group of young males can into the room. They were mucking about pushing and shoving each other and didn’t really notice us until Peachbum and one of the older looking women shouted at them. Most of them promptly turned round and left, but one smaller one ran over to Peachbum and slipped into the water next to her. The two of them hugged, mother and child obviously and then he turned to look at me, reached out and put the middle finger of one hand between my breasts slid it up and out the top and then sniffed his fingers. Just for a second as he touched me I froze, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to do anything more so I sat still and didn’t react. His mother did though, the tone of her voice made it plain he was being told off. His little face fell, he looked so pitiful, he hadn’t hurt me, he’d probably never seen anyone like me before it wasn’t his fault. How could I show him this without being able to speak. I put my arms out to him and motioned ‘come to me’, he let go of his mother and came into my arms and we had a hug, his face perked up and he grinned at me, possibly showing a few more teeth than I would have done, but he seemed happy again. Peachbum motioned to me to turn round and lean back; I realised she wanted to dreamspeak me, so I twisted round and laid back towards her. The little one seemed happy to hang round my neck as I did this so I left him where he was and did my best to relax my mind.

“I’m sorry if that wasn’t pleasant; he’s young so he just reacted the way most males would, it’s why we told the older ones to leave. I didn’t think he’d just do the same thing; maybe he’s growing up faster than I thought. Then when I said not to do it, it was difficult to explain why not, but you can’t be too upset if you’re willing to give him a hug. He’s really a softy he’ll hug anything”.

“I’m fine, it’s not what I expected but it doesn’t matter. I just look different; it was obvious you all found me a bit strange when I took my top off”.

“Yes, a lot of people who look like you come trading but only men, and your body seems a bit odd to us. Are you like that all the time or are you heading into your fertile period and it acts as a signal”.

“I’m like this all the time, well since I grew up, became a woman not a girl. Even dreamspeaking this doesn’t really make sense in my head. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by some of the things you’re saying”.

“My chest never looks like yours, so swollen, even when I’m feeding a baby; but at the time of year when I start to become fertile and ready to mate my bottom swells so it looks a bit like your chest. It’s the first thing that happens, I’m not really ready, so males who see me like that will pop a finger in and sniff to see if I smell right, when I’m really ready for mating they can smell the difference and that will excite them to mount me. Of course the subdominant males don’t get near me at that time my dominant male keeps me to himself, but they would still take a sniff if he wasn’t around. So my son was just doing what he felt was natural. I could see by the look on your face as soon as he touched you it wasn’t what you wanted and since I don’t know how you do mate I thought it best to tell him not to touch you”.

My mind was spinning, clearly these people; I still wanted to think of them as people they were too polite, cultured and considerate to be anything else; these people had a very different biology to me. “It’s alright, well it’s alright for the little one, I wouldn’t one the bigger ones to start doing it. It’s obvious we are not really that alike in a lot of ways”.

“Oh I don’t know, a bit of body hair and your strange sexual habits don’t amount to much. As I said we trade with people like you all the time”.

“Yes I’m sorry it’s me that is having to get used to new things. Where I come from there are no people like you, my minds so full of questions; but you’ve been so good to me I just want to know about everything that’s different because I’m curious. I came all the way across the Sunset Sea to find this land just because I was curious and now I’m here and it is really exciting”. As I said it I realised I was telling the truth, these people were different and it would be great to understand all the ways they were different. Stanson had talked about having a purpose in life and said my problem was not having a healthy one; well now I had one, I was going to find out everything there was to know about these people and then I’d go and find some other different people and start all over again and one day I’d write it all down for people to read.

“Well if you don’t mind me being curious as well can you explain the strange body colour, with the dark patches at the edges and a white patch in the middle and the little bits of fur between your legs and under your arms”.

I was about to answer, well the first bit about the dark and light skin, I wasn’t sure I had a good answer about what she called the patches of fur; when I felt the muscles in Peachbum’s hands stiffen. I could also hear a loud deep voice outside that I felt certain was her male. She was shouting something, “Am I safe with him, or can you keep him outside”.

“No he’s coming in, he says you can’t be that odd, but I’m not that sure”.

I could tell you she was worried and that frightened me, what if he did get over excited; I’d not come half way round the world to get raped by the first local man I saw. He stepped into my view, he was massive, not tall but heavy, maybe four or five stone heavier than Haerd despite begin several inches shorter. I had no weapon anywhere near me, I might duck and run but I certainly wasn’t going to fight back effectively if he tried anything. I couldn’t help but look between his legs and suddenly it all seemed rather pointless worrying, he might have all the muscles in the world but he also had the tiniest prick I’d seen that wasn’t on a 5 year old child. It was such a release of nervous tension that I started to laugh. He made a comment to Peachbum.

“He says he’s not sure what’s so amusing, but would you please just stand up so he can look at you. If you’re not safe with him we need to work out how to get you back to your ship in safety so it’s best to understand the problem, if there is one”.

I realised I was still holding her young son, who seemed quite oblivious to what we were doing and was virtually asleep. I removed an arm and passed him to his mother, in process I had to break the link between us. Ah one more snag, now I wouldn’t know how he was reacting. I braced myself and stood up, as straight as I could but trying not to pose in some way, just stand there. Relax I told myself, just relax. I looked him straight in the eye, he was looking nervous; I couldn’t help it I looked down, he’d put his hands between his legs and it was clear he wanted to cover something up. He motioned me to turn round so I took a slow circle, I was trying to make the movement look as ordinary as possible, he was after all very big and very hunky and didn’t look so different that I wasn’t a little bit pleased that he liked what he saw. I was a young woman, I didn’t want him to look at me as thought I was a child or ugly even if it was a bit risky.

I finished my circle and pointed looked back at his face. He nodded, turned away from me, let his hands drop to his sides, made a quick comment over his shoulder and walked out. I looked back down to Peachbum and she motioned me back down beside her so she could put her hands back on my temples.

“Well that could have been worse, but I think you saw we have a problem. He said he could control himself, you don’t smell right and his exact words were ‘everything’s a bit pale and not really furry enough’; but yes he did have his hands over his prick because it was erect, he thinks a dominant male will be interested but not unable to control himself. It’s not just the globes on your chest it’s the ones on your bum as well. You’re giving off permanent ‘nearly ready to mate’ signals”.

I could see one of the other women walking out of the bath, Peachbum was right she had no bum either; her back just ran into her legs. I looked down at myself, it hadn’t been that long since I’d surveyed my chest one morning and thought, ‘where have those come from’ and since I’d been on the boat I’d clearly lost weight so where they’d been small but at least nicely round now they were just a little bit saggy. “I’m surprise the little I’ve got excites anyone”.

“You’ve gto so much more than anyone else round here though it’s all relative. Balls is more worried about the juvenile and subordinate males; he thinks they might find you exciting enough for a bit of playsex. You’re very slender he thinks it’s more that they’d hurt you physically”.

The idea of playsex, whatever that might mean, with the smaller males, still three times my weight didn’t appeal for lots of reasons “You’d better give me my clothes back then”.

“That’s the problem; your clothing was so foul smelling and filthy we threw it away, burned it actually. I’m sorry this is going to get a bit complicated”.

I sat up and swore, loudly. It didn’t matter what foul language I used, they couldn’t understand me anyway. Then the little one woke up took one look at me ranting and grabbed his mother. That calmed me down, these people had been good to me all day and at the first real problem I’d resorted to aggressive behaviour. I turned round to Peachbum and made my best sorry hand gesture. She shook her head at me. I wasn’t sure if that was disapproval or not but I made more abasement moves to try and show I was unhappy with what I’d done. She shrugged and motioned me back to where we could dreamspeak. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done that”.

“You’re very tired, you nearly died this morning, you’re in a new place with very strange people, I think I can forgive you. Cuddles might take a bit more persuading”.

I realised she was talking about the little one, who I could just see out of the corner of my eye peering at me from behind his mother.

“I was asking about your body colour, and now I’ve realised it’s what was under the clothes that is lighter. I wondered if you could change it like some lizards can, but it’s just the effect of sunshine isn’t it”.

I was about to agree with her when it suddenly occurred to me that she was wrong. If I could change my features to look like someone else I could change my skin colour to match theirs; I could change what I liked. “You’re a genius, I hadn’t thought about it, but I have the answer. Now this isn’t something that anyone else can do; just me and a very few others. Like dreamspeaking it’s a special skill; watch”. I moved away from her and sat on the edge of the bath, it would take a while but I focussed on her body trying to ignore her face. I wanted to look like her in general, I thought if I turned into an identical twin she might find it too strange.

Slowly I felt it working, the pale skin darkening a little, my own body hair getting thicker and more common, a lighter brown to match hers. I shrank my breasts down, but I wasn’t going to have a flat chest, no sir, I’d have the same muscles as she had. I looked down at myself, ah yes final touch, my pubic hair melted away to match in with the rest of my body. I couldn’t resist, I stuck my hands out and pirouetted to show myself off. They were stood there with looks of total astonishment on their faces. I’d never changed before an audience before, but I supposed Stanson would look just as shocked if I‘d done it in front of him.

I put my hands out to Peachbum, took her head in my hands for a change “Will that work”.

“Ye Gods, now you really have frightened me. I thought you were just a rather small trader woman, but now…..”

Her voice trailed off, for a second I wondered if I’d gone too far and this would backfire on me. I’d been taught you never revealed yourself to others, that gave them power over you, but I was tired, not just physically but of seeing everything as a fight and a fight to the death. Stanson said I needed to change for my own sake. I was beginning to see what he meant. I tried my best to ‘sound’ relaxing “I’m sorry if that shocked you, I suppose it is something really strange. I’m sure my friends on the ship would be just as shocked if I did the same in front of them”. She shook her head slowly.

“Arya Stark, you are the most surprising thing I have ever met and yes that makes you more than a little bit frightening, but I refuse to believe anyone who would sit and cuddle my son for an hour can be that bad a person, so it might take time, but I’ll get used to you”.

I didn’t have an answer to that one and I was getting very tired. “Can we go back to the ship now please I really need some sleep”.

“Of course you can”.

She picked up Cuddles and we walked out of the bathroom together. My trip to find what was West of Westeros had in once sense ended, but in another was only just beginning.


	17. So much to tell you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the Petrel, which involved some nudity, shape-shifting and more learning about a different cultures sexual mores.

They pulled us into harbour and tied us to a quay at the far end of the harbour. We were out of the way, which suited me, we weren’t going anywhere and it was stupid to get in the way of the daily traffic. Food and water was brought on board and one of the locals stayed and ate with us, I think to ensure we realised we weren’t being poisoned. I had a little laugh out of the fact that they obviously thought Haerd was in charge, they clearly thought size mattered. Once he worked it out Haerd was upset, they were asking him questions as best they could using sign language and he wasn’t really keeping up. It took us a while, but we did convince them I was the skipper and communication started to go through me. It’s surprising how much you can achieve by waving your hands about, but I suspected that once we got beyond eating and drinking things would get harder. Just how I would manage ship repairs I wasn’t sure.

It was just before sunset, going a bit dim and they’d just given us some more food, water and fuel for the fire in the galley. There were two of them on the quay, pretty obviously a guard in the nicest possible way. Then I saw a group approaching us, they were smaller and a paler brown than the black/silver males. At a distance it looked almost like one of them was Arya, same height, same slender body, but as they got closer it was obvious it was a local girl, she was even carrying a youngster. They all walked up to the side of the ship, but then the little one handed the kid over and started doing the hugs all round thing that women go in for before they say goodbye. Finally she took hold of one woman’s hands and they stood facing each other for a good minute; obviously a local custom. When they’d finished she turned towards the ship and walked on to the gang plank.

“Permission to come aboard skipper”.

I stood there with my mouth open, the voice was pure Arya Stark, the way she said it was pure Arya Stark. I stared at the face, that too was Arya.

“Well codfish face do I get to come aboard or do I go back and sleep with my new friends and their dominant male”.

Oh yes that was Arya alright “You get to come aboard, You don’t really need to ask, you’re crew now”. I nearly said ‘family’ but thought don’t push your luck, she's clearly in a good mood. It was getting easier to read her, in part because she was getting more like us; abuse was something you did with friends, when you weren’t happy you went quiet. ‘Always watch the silent man’ my mother had said, in Arya's case I kept watch on the silent woman as well. I did wonder what my mother would have made of Arya, I think she would have approved.

“You’re mighty quiet for once, is it my new look, it certainly wowed my new friends when I put it on”.

I looked at her again, it wasn’t the half-light, she had pulled the shapeshifter stunt. What stood before me was a naked, brown haired, breastless creature. The face was Arya, the beetle brows, the cheeky grin, and she was grinning, clearly very pleased with herself. “Was there a serious need for this, or were you just showing off to the locals. Sorry that sounds wrong, but your skill might just upset more people than it impresses in some situations”.

You’re right, I’ve never done anything like this before. Previously it’s been change on my own, go somewhere, kill someone, come back and change back in private and if you’d suggested a week ago I changed just to show you how it was done I’d have said no”.

“Which is why I never asked. I thought this a was private part of you and you’d want it to stay that way”.

“Yes but what else is a naked girl to do when she needs to get home”.

“I’m pretty sure I sent you off this morning decently dressed, is there something else I need to worry about”.

“You know skipper I genuinely think you have so much less to worry about today than you did yesterday. Just relax and enjoy life; I think I’m learning to”.

This statement was so un Arya like that just for a minute I wondered what had happened to her.

“However it’s a reasonable question and thank you for showing your usual concern. You may notice that I do not smell as I did when I left this morning”.

It was true I’d noticed a delicate scent of the sort I’d normally associate with good quality soap on her.

“I’ve had a bath”.

Now she was just gloating.

“I have washed myself clean of the filth and salt of sixty days at sea. Unfortunately in the process my hosts decided to burn my clothes on the grounds I wouldn’t want them again. Sadly they did this before they realised that a naked Arya is something the local young men might want what they described as ‘playsex’ with. I haven’t got to the bottom of playsex, although I will, but they look big boys to play with so it seemed that the safe way to come home was to look like a local woman”.

I just shook my head, she was right, why did I worry about her, I’d sent her out this morning on the verge of death, not really expecting to see her again and here she was clean, smelling if not of roses then something mildly sweet and cheerfully talking about ‘playsex’ with the local boys. “Just one question, I’ll admit you have excelled yourself, but how are you communicating with them. I’m doing ham acting hand gestures to get food and water and lead them to the galley fire to get them to understand I wanted some wood, you appear to be working on a totally different level”.

“That skipper is part of a very long story, but for now I am tired; clean, well fed, but very very tired. I’ll tell you about it all in the morning”. I turned and walked into the cabin and just fell onto my cot.

I took one last look round the deck and followed Arya into the cabin. I stepped over to her side to see she was all right. She was face down in her cot clearly already asleep. Still she had every right to be tired. I couldn’t help having another look at her new furry self, she was still recognisably Arya and I had to admit still as attractive as I’d always found her. Then I realised something very strange was happening. Before my eyes her body was changing, the fur turning back to naked human flesh, the pale and tanned bits clearly delineated, her long dark hair returning to her head. I also realised she was lying in a pretty indiscreet position, legs spread. I moved back to my side of the cabin and turned to get into my bunk. Then I stopped. If someone came in to wake us in the morning she might still be laying like that, I should go across and cover her up; But if I did she’d realised I’d seen her to decide she needed covering. I was hung either way. I remembered she’s once said she didn’t have any sense of shame left about nakedness and she had been naked when she came aboard so I left as she was and got into my own cot. She was right so many questions in the morning but for now all I wanted to know about was how the Hell she could turn into not just a different face, which I’d heard about, but a totally different body. I remembered she’s said she didn’t think it would last if she slept; well she’ll realise in the morning that she was right. As usual one discovery had just provided so many more questions.


	18. Settling who's boss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of a bit of an important subplot

After the day I’d had I was expecting a night of dreamless sleep and probably a late awakening as I didn’t expect to be on watch in harbour. It was therefore a surprise when I found myself dreaming about talking to a dragon.

“You’re not dreaming idiot, you are talking to me”.

I don’t know how you feel like you’ve been jolted awake when you’re asleep but it happened. The words ‘Oh Shit’ formed in my mind.

“That’s not very polite; I save your life and those of the crew of your tatty little ship. I was rather hoping for something along the lines of ‘How can I ever thank you, your wish will forever be my command etcetera’”.

“I really am very very grateful, you’re right you did save my life and my friends, but I wouldn’t want to disappoint you by making promises I couldn’t possibly keep”. It suddenly felt like the dragon was sitting on me I was crushed and gasping for breath.

“Listen to me, cocky little thing, if I decide its necessary you will spend every living moment doing exactly as I desire, because if you don’t I will kill you so easily, I wouldn’t notice I’d done it and don’t think you can pull some sort of shapeshifting trick on me like you did this afternoon, I can see into your mind, I’ll know it’s you however odd your body looks. Yes I’ve spoken to the woman Rodakino, she isn’t a fool, so I know all about your shapeshifting. I’ll grant you, that’s clever, but it means nothing to me. Now will you accept that I make the decisions and you do what I decide or will all that soap just be a waste when they find your body tomorrow morning”.

The sense of being crushed was getting worse, it wasn’t a pain, it wasn’t like the snake wrapped round me, it was just a sense that my body was stopping working. “Alright you’ve made your point, firstly I should be more grateful, secondly I should be more respectful, I’m sorry”. The pressure eased.

“Good enough. I don’t care about your gratitude, I do what I want when and how I want, if you benefit be thankful. What I do expect is your respect, you may have wandered into my mind that once, but I can feel you now so it won’t happen again and the idea you could threaten me by dying and your life force ending up in my mind is just as ridiculous. So the Nai S woman spelled it out for you, the dragons are in charge on this side of what you call the Sunset Sea and the rules are simple, total obedience or death. In practice that means if you want to keep that tattered ship of yours and trade around the Dragon Lands you can if the locals let you and I’d imagine they will. You will never go back to Westeros. One day the dragons may go East and get your peoples under proper control but for now we won’t so we don’t want the likes of you turning up too often. You will have disappeared just as completely as the woman [Alys Westhill](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Alys_Westhill) and her crew did”. 

So Alys had made it; I had to interrupt and ask “Did Brandon Stark ever get here”.

“The name means nothing to me and the far eastern lands are all mine, so no he must just have died on the way. Funny that, two crews with women leading them turn up, the one lead by a man doesn’t”.

I thought about correcting her and pointing out this was really Marcus Stanson’s ship, but why spoil a good story.

“I’m in your mind fool; you can’t think anything and me not understand it. I know all about your Marcus Stanson, I’ve looked into not just your conscious mind but your subconscious as well. I know things your body does that you haven’t got round to thinking about yet. Think about that little thing, I know every greedy little urge you’ve ever had, to lie, to steal, to kill. I know who your body has wanted to mate with even when your presumptuous little mind was busy hating the self-same people because they’d hurt your precious little ego. 

I kept quiet, there was no answer to this.

“Good you’re learning. So as I’ve said, you are my slave when I want you to be, but frankly I don’t really care what you get up to in your, oh so short, life, just remember the dragon rules and her first rule is don’t ever sale East of the Sunrise Island again”.

And just like that she was gone. Funny how you remember some dreams and forget others, I was sure this one would stay with me to my dying day.


	19. Too much too soon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit about a different culture and my shape-shifting, another occasional mention of nudity.

Our first dawn broke in the Dragon Lands and we were both up pretty much with it. I was out of my cot first and stood facing the wall putting my clothes on when I heard her wake up. I tried to make my voice neutral “Good Morning”.

I woke lying face down one leg half hitched over the side one arm up above my head. I must have literally fallen asleep as I fell into my cot. I pushed myself partway up and realised I had breasts again. I looked down at them. They’d never been very big but after the last few days and particularly the limited amounts of water I’d had they seemed even smaller and a bit saggy. I realised the change hadn’t held while I was asleep. I also realised that if Marcus had even looked across at me he’d pretty well have got an eyeful of everything. “Sorry if I gave you a shock last night”.

Did she mean when she came on board as a local, or had she worked out I’d seen her naked in bed. Who care’s she’s apologising to me, “Nothing I can’t cope with” Oh to Hell with it “You know you made a very beautiful local lady, when I saw you with the little one I was disappointed that that meant you had to be married, or whatever equates to married round here”.

What is he talking about, the little one. Then it clicked I’d been carrying Cuddles as we came onto the dock. Had he really been eyeing up the local talent or was this some sort of way of trying to tell me he liked the look of me. Life was too confusing for that at present. I just ignored the last comment “Any idea if there’s anything ready for breakfast”.

So much for a little light flirtation. “I’ve no idea, I got up literally moments before you. Have you anything to wear”.

Shit he was right they’d taken one set of my clothes and effectively I only had one other set for warm weather. There was no way I was putting leather on in this climate. Where were my other clothes, after the storm half the contents of the cabin had been soaking wet, I suspected we’d put them somewhere to dry. Then I thought, why bother I’m comfortable naked it’s other people who get all hot and bothered and I felt in my mind and shifted again into my hairier breastless self. “Will this do”.

The question indicated she obviously meant me to turn round and look so I did. She was almost back to her form of last night, the last of her hair shortening apparently disappearing into her scalp. What could I say, “It will do you very well with the locals and I assume we’re going to be seeing more of them today. I think some of the crew might take time to adjust to the whole idea, not what you look like but what you can do”.

“Well let’s make it easy on them then. Please would you go and get me breakfast and a big jug of water. I still feel like I’m a dried prune”.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes”. I went out on deck and forward, before I even reached the door I could hear laughter and smell cooking in the galley. “Anything going for the two of us aft”. I had two large plates of meat and fruit put into my hands “And some water Arya still feels dried out”. Piot picked up a jug and indicated I should lead him out the door. That suited me he was probably the best person to introduce the new Arya to first. As we went along the deck I was about to say something when the door to the cabin opened and she stepped out.

I was getting hungry and, just a little bit, I was losing my nerve about appearing as I was. Oh to hell with it. I walked out of the cabin onto the deck and met Marcus and Piot coming the other way “Morning Piot, can I get away with this or have I gone too far”. He stopped in front of me with a look on his face that just said total mental confusion.

“Yes Piot that is Arya, our Arya, but looking like a local woman to blend in. The question is will she be too much of a shock for the crew”.

He was still just standing there so I took the water jug out of his hands and had a good swig, then put it back in his hands and took my food from Marcus.

After Arya took her plate I turned so I could see Piot’s face. Piot was a good man and no fool aboard a ship, otherwise he wouldn’t have been my first mate, but it was obvious this was just so far outside his mental scope that he’d stopped functioning.

So maybe this wasn’t such a good idea “I think maybe I’d better go back inside and change, back into the normal me and back into some clothes of some sort. I’m sorry Piot I didn’t mean to shock you like that”. This finally got a reaction, “No.no Arya you’re all right. I’m sorry it’s been a scary few says and I thought things might start to settle down, but you do what you want. I’ll get used to it”. No I thought if it’s hit him this hard some of the rest of the crew won’t cope. I turned and went back into the cabin.

Piot looked at me “Sorry skipper, but that was just a bit stranger than I want to have to think about for now”. I told him not to worry and he went back forrard. I looked around the deck and found Arya’s shirt and shorts hanging from a line rigged across the aftercastle. I pulled them off the line and took them back to the cabin. I got to the door and stopped “I’ve got your clothes can I come in”.

What did he mean “Of course you can come in or are you frightened of me now”.

“I’ve never been frightened of you”, well once or twice but she didn’t have to know that now.

“Then come in here, look me in the face, give me my clothes and sit down and eat your food while I put them on as though it’s what you do every morning”.

I did as I was told. She was human Arya again stood there naked. I looked her in the eye and kept my eyes up as she took the clothes. I looked down at the table to put my plate on it, then sat down and took some food. When I had a mouthful I looked up at her, she’d got her shirt on and was pulling up her shorts under the shirt tails so she was as decent as she had been for the last couple of weeks in the hot climate.

“Well that went spectacularly wrong didn’t it. I thought I was a part of the team by now, but clearly I was wrong”.

“You are one of the team, you were one of the team weeks ago, but after the storm your position as ‘one of us’ is set in stone. That doesn’t stop you being a shock to the system and Piot’s system is still recovering from nearly dying in the storm and then nearly dying before we were rescued. Give him a day or two and maybe talk to him about it and I’m sure he‘ll be fine”. In Piot’s case I was sure I was telling the truth, I wasn’t quite so certain about some of the rest of the crew.

He was probably right, so why was I so upset about it.

“You’ve had a bad time the last few days, try and let things slide by, minimum effort until you’ve calmed down. I let myself get bothered last night when I came in and found you naked. You’ve said time and again it doesn’t bother you but I was stood there, do I leave her naked or do I cover her, if I cover her up she’ll know I saw her naked. This morning it feels like I was a child seeing his first naked woman and overreacting”.

I took a deep breath he was probably right “Did you shout ‘look mummy boobies’, when you saw me, because if not you need to work on your five year old impression”.

Thank the gods she was starting to see the funny side of things again. “No I have to confess I didn’t, that’s the sort of little detail an expert like you gets right and an amateur like me doesn’t”.

“You’re right we’re all mentally scrambled. OK no more funny faces until we’ve all had time to calm down and I’ve talked to people before it happens”. There was a bang on the door and Haerd’s voice on the other side. “There’s a deputation of the locals on the dockside. I think you need to come and see them”. I looked at Marcus “Shall we go”.

“I think we’d better”. I stuffed a last mouthful of food into my mouth and we headed out.


	20. So here we are then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We settle in to a different culture, some of those differences are mildly sexual

I walked out onto the deck and was pleased to see Peachbum in a party of four standing on the dockside. Behind them were probably a couple of dozen others come to look at the foreigners, but it was obvious that the three large silver and black males and Peachbum were the official party. She waved at us and I waved back for her to come aboard. The others stood on the quay and waited. As soon as she was down with me she took my hands. It was getting easier every time we did this. We exchanged greetings and she explained that the three males, Silver, Bigballs and Brains were the de facto top men in town and had come to invite our dominant male to discuss what was going to be done next so would I get him to come with us to a nearby building so we could all talk.

Arya and a female were holding hands and I assumed communicating. She turned her head round towards me.

“These are the town big wigs, we’re invited to go somewhere nearby and talk about what happens next”.

“Lead on then”, and she did up the gangplank with female still in one hand and across the dockside towards what looked like a fairly upmarket tavern. I followed on and the three males closed round me. The largest put his hand out towards me so I took it and shook just like I would back home. The two others then followed suit. As we walked one of them, I later learned it was the female’s husband, pointed towards Arya and her friend and made a gesture that was clearly a mouth speaking with each hand. I nodded and the other two males grinned. Well that was one thing that was the same; we all thought the women chattered. We went into the building and were shown into a back room. At this point out little trail of followers were clearly shown the other side of the door and we all sat down around a table. There was food and drink on it, but no one else dived in so I sat tight.

“Skipper, we can eat what we like when we like, but we’re going to be here for the day so we’re not expected to start now”.

She paused and then looked back at me.

“The biggest guy in the middle is Asimi, literally it means Silver; he’s not just mayor he’s sort of provincial governor as well. The other two are Bales and Enkefalous, I’m not telling you the translations or you’ll laugh, they have very literal descriptive names here. They know we’ve come from the West and apparently we’re under the protection of the dragon so we’re as safe as we could possibly be, but we’re not going to be allowed to freeload. Either we start paying for things or some of the crew are going to have to go and help around the dock to earn our keep”.

“Fair enough, have you seen any local currency”. Pause then the local female talked to the males. The smallest of the three, Enkefalous I think, opened a purse round his waist and scattered some pretty small silver and copper coins on the table, sorted a medium sized silver one out and showed it me. I saw Arya’s eyes open wide.

“Something that weight in silver will get us board and lodgings for a week. I’ve probably got enough small change from my shopping in Old Town for us to stop here a year”.

In my world copper was small change, but I was fine with the domestic situation, but what about something bigger if we wanted to repair the boat. “Fine that’s good, but what about bigger coins, gold for bigger jobs. The Petrel either needs a lot of repairs or we need a new ship”. I watched the local lad’s faces as the woman put the question. They were sitting up straighter, gold obviously talked over here too. A small silver coin was waved about and Arya’s eyes opened wide; then she turned to me.

“Forget money, apparently the Dragon Lands don’t have much in the way of gold. The whole economy runs on silver. The little coin he waved at us, a gold coin that size will buy you a new boat considerably bigger than the Petrel. Try and act calm, but we are probably richer than the whole Nai S people”.

Well that was almost too good to be true. “Right, I’ll leave it up to you but at some point we need to convert one of those gold dinner plates of yours into usable silver without making it obvious we own any more otherwise the protection of the dragon or not someone will either start overcharging us or find a way to separate us from it. They may be perfectly peaceable folk but put enough money in front of them and they’ll work out ways of getting their hands on it”.

“I agree, they seem to be happy to take my word for it that we can pay so I’ll go along for a while using the small stuff I’ve got and we can raise the topic of exchange later”.

I looked at the males, everyone was smiles, “So is that it”.

“No but I think that’s business for the day. They just want us, by which the males really mean you, to tell them all about the journey and I suspect, although they know it’s banned territory, they will want to know all about Westeros when you’ve finished talking about the trip. Peachbum says it’s, and these are her words, ‘an excuse to sit around and booze while the men tell tall tales’”.

Substantially Rodakino was right I had to tell the story, the girls translated it to the big lads and in the meantime wine appeared and we all started to tuck into the food. After that the wine kicked in and my detailed memory got a bit fuzzy. 

I noticed Peachbum didn’t drink much and despite the fact I still felt dry I tried to stay behind her. I know very well that the effect of alcohol is weight related and I’m small. Marcus wasn’t quite so circumspect and the three locals quite deliberately pushed him to drink more so he fairly quickly got fairly drunk. I did try and eat well though, Peachbum had put her hands on my hips at one point and asked if all females were this boney and I had to admit I was normally not this thin. I thought of looking at my sagging breasts earlier and determined to make up the loss.

It was funny hearing Marcus’ version of our trip. I stuck to passing his story to Peachbum as much as I could but there were a couple times when I felt he’d missed important things out so I stuck them back in. Three things stuck in my mind from the day; firstly how Marcus told a story without involving people in it, things happened but no one was singled out, it was the crew’s story no heroes. Secondly the sea monster provoked much concern and I was made to show as many of my scars as could be ‘decently’ revealed, which lead directly to the third. Bigballs wouldn’t look at me; Peachbum revealed that he was still embarrassed at his reaction to my nakedness from the previous day and found it hard to look at me without remembering how sexy I looked, which just made him more embarrassed again. It was obvious she thought this was really funny and reflected on how sweet he was. I was just a little unsure that it didn’t mean I had to be very careful with my appearance.

We got back to the ship well after dark and I made it to my cabin on my own feet, but I left Arya to deal with the pile of questions from the crew.

By the time we got back I was walking but not thinking, I’d managed to stay sober. I’d stuffed my belly though to the point Marcus had made a joke about me looking like I was pregnant and honestly he was right, it was a good job my pants held up with a string. So when he disappeared not too steadily to his cot and told Piot “Arya will explain everything” there was a moment when I wanted to hit him.

That feeling subsided when I realised they all did want me to tell them everything that had gone on. There wasn’t much to tell really since they knew the story, but I sat and explained what was going on and answered their questions. Whatever upset I’d caused that morning had clearly been forgotten and I felt a lot calmer when I realised that.

I was right that the crew just needed time to get used to my shapechanging. I really enjoyed walking around with Peachbum as a local woman so at first I didn’t change until I’d got to her house and then changed back before coming home. After a about a week this got irritating so I asked everyone to meet on deck after lunch and explained what I did and how I did it, at least up to a point. Then I asked for questions and for once I got a direct response. I think they were just too nosey to be their usual standoffish selves. The major issue turned out to be the existence of a bag of faces, which they believed I had to have hidden on the ship. This was apparently wrong, because the faces were parts of real people who should be given decent burial or cremation or whatever, but definitely not carried around on board their ship. So I was able to assure them that while such things existed and I had used them in the past I’d learned to do without them. The mask was never more than a guide to a person; it was no use having the face of a 60 year old man but the body of a girl in her teens. The advantage of the mask was speed; it was slower transforming from scratch than pulling on the mask but I didn’t need the bag and I could actually copy people without killing them first, or even create new people of my own as I had with my Nai S body. In the end I was asked to do a demonstration, so I turned myself into the skipper. This allowed them to make jokes about the two of us, which helped relax everyone. 

We spent a long time in Megalo Limani the town we’d arrived at. We’d been at sea for a long voyage and arrived in a pretty beaten up state so no one was in any rush to move on. The crew were a little disappointed to find no brothels on the dockside, or elsewhere in town, but there were taverns aplenty, some serving Nai S food others setup by foreigners to appeal to their visiting crews and nearly all served alcohol as well so they were quite happy to sit around, eat drink and talk. We rented, or bought I wasn’t quite sure, two houses near the docks normally used by visiting crews and Arya and I moved into one and crew into the other. Nais S houses are built of pretty large blocks of stone, carefully cut and slotted together. Then there’s some timber to hold a sort of woven palm leaf roof. The stone’s thick do they stay pleasantly cool in the heat and it picks up enough sunlight to avoid begin really cold at night. Outside doors and windows have wooden shutters. Inside there’s a big central room, kitchen at pone end, privy come bathroom at the other. They go in for soaking in a warm tub so the bathroom end has a fire outside to heat the place. The privy is a communal four or five seat row into buckets that get taken round to the dung heap each day. The rest of the house in individual rooms round the main one, but none of the internal rooms have doors so there isn’t much privacy. As a result I decided Arya needed her own space.

There was a bit of me that said the crew have got used to me so we could all share, but the house wasn’t really built for twelve, more like eight, so Stanson’s suggestion of two seemed sensible. Then I realised I was going to be on my own, he’d moved his stuff into the other house already. I was back with my old, ‘why doesn’t he want to share with me’ worry, or was it a deliberate move to make me ask him to move in so he could, well actually he could what, score a point. I’d come to realise that he didn’t see things like that, there were the jokes at my expense if I did or said something stupid, but that was more a way of pointing out the stupidity without doing the ranting superior act. Maybe he really did think I’d like to be on my own. It would avoid the inevitable moment when one of us walked in on the other by mistake, but again we’d done that on board ship, both of us treated it the same way, ignore it and carry on.

So once I’d settled my kit into what I considered the choice small room, I went to see him. “Skipper, I’m going to get bored next door on my own and you’ll all a bit cramped up in here, how about three of you move in with me next door”.

Three, that was a very specific number, did she have three in mind for a particular reason. Then I realised she’d just counted rooms that way we’d all get a small room each. “Well I won’t say no, which will let someone else avoid sharing”, I’d pulled rank and was by myself. “Anyone else like to accept the young lady’s generous offer”.

The room went very quiet. I looked round and everyone was trying not to look at me and look busy at the same time. “Come on lads, you know I don’t bite and you know I’m not going to play her ladyship either”.

More silence then Piot turned to me “Thank you for the invitation. I know it’s meant with good intent and I’m sure that actually if we tried very hard we could make it work, but that’s the problem any of us except the Skipper we’d be working at being acceptable company. We wouldn’t be relaxed. It’s not that we don’t like you, or respect you but it just wouldn’t be comfortable. You and the skipper go and share like you have all the way across and I know that means nothing more than you live in the same room or house and so if they’re honest does everyone else despite the odd comment you might have heard on deck”.

Blimey coming from Piot that was like some famous general’s exhortation to his troops before the last battle. “Thank you Piot, I’ll assume that you are speaking for the rest of the crew unless anyone else wishes to say something”; I paused and the silence was exactly what I’d expected. I picked up one of Stanson’s bags off the floor. “Come on then Skipper, I’ve bagged the best room, but you’ve got seven others to pick from”.

I was pleased she’d asked me. She was far better company than any of the others, I could argue with her, the others always said yes to anything I said. She was also cleverer than most of them. I didn’t think she’d have had much of an education, but whether her father was a more liberated man than I expected or she’d managed to learn for herself somehow she picked up more knowledge than I’d expected. I also had to admit to myself that I was pleased because she’d not chosen to live alone. She also seemed to be making a genuine friend in Rodakino. She still had a knack of unnerving people, the shape changing had initially been a mistake with the crew, but she was beginning to realise when she did it and stop, not plough on regardless of the people’s feelings.

I got my kit into the room angled so that we couldn’t see in each other’s doors and then addressed the privy issue head on. “What are we doing about the bathroom and privy, do we shout as we approach or what”.

“If I can go in front of a man I’m actually afraid of by the side of a road I can go in front of you in there. Everyone round here shares, that’s why there’s five seats in a row. Peachbum’ll come and sit next to you without thinking if she comes and visits. I think we might as well get used to local customs. She has a phrase ‘When with the Nai S do as the Nai S do”.

“That’s easy for you to say and probably to do, but I have to be honest with you, you’re a pretty young thing and if I see you naked there may be a reaction I can’t avoid”.

“You mean you’ll get a boner”

“If that’s the phrase you want to use yes”. 

“Funny that we say that, but apparently the Nai S men actually have a bone in their dick; it means they can keep it up for literally hours on end”.

“Don’t change the subject”.

“I’m not, well not much. Peachbum’s male Bigballs gets a twitch when he sees me too so you can suffer in company. I shall ignore any such reaction, I suspect you’ll get used to me sooner than he will”.

“Go on then, as my mistress commands and I shall obey”. She a made rude gesture and left me to start making dinner.

I was pleased he’d gone along with that. I’d already discussed the subject with Peachbum and she’d made the same point as me, none of the Nai S would do anything but share, what was the point of living with them if all we ever did was say 'I can’t do that'. I’d yet to tell him a social call would almost certainly include communal bathing.


	21. Nocturnal interruptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a teenage girl they do this sort of thing by themselves, in this case she might not be entirely doing it in private.
> 
> This is definitely an explicit adult chapter if you want to skip on.

We’d got our kit into the house and gone to bed. The Nai S pretty much packed up at dusk around six in the evening and went to sleep so we were still looking for lights to allow us to stay up later as we were used to. So I was laying on the bed not really sleepy but with little else to do. So why not it would help me relax and drop off. I slid my finger into my slit and started gently to rub myself. Dip my finger a bit lower to pick up a bit of moisture then back to the button at the top. I’d been going maybe three or four minutes, things were beginning to hot up, but I wasn’t anywhere hear the ‘can’t stop now’ stage when I felt a tickling in my mind. It took me a second to realise it was Peachbum doing to me what I’d done for years to Nymeria. She was almost certainly asleep and her mind had drifted out and found mine. Just for a second my finger froze, then I started to think it through, she was either just getting feelings, in which case she’d already feel my arousal, or she was in my mind more in the way the dragon had been in which case she was party to my thoughts. There was no reply like I’d have expected from the dragon, so it seemed more like she would just be feeling me, moderately aroused. I supposed I could stop but if she realised I’d stopped for her she might be upset she’d disturbed me and I didn’t want that. This was complicated, but somehow not complicated enough for my other me, what had Stanson called it; my ‘secret inner mother’ or in this case maybe ‘my secret inner wanker’, because I realised that my finger was actually back in action and the intensity was starting to rise again.

I’d just got to the squeezing my thighs stage when something slapped my mental wrist. I got a massive flood of embarrassment like I’d been caught out as a nine year old by Septa Mordane.

“Stop it you dirty little child” the message in my mind was clear now and pure dragon “I will not have you interrupting my messages to the Nai S for food with your depraved little fiddling about”.

“I’m not fiddling about I’m relieving a perfectly normal human sexual desire thank you. So dragons don’t do this then”.

“Of course not, you humans are obsessive about sex, at least the Nai S have the decency to keep it to a few days a year, but you’re at it all the time”.

“So how do you produce dragon eggs then if you don’t have sex”.

“Oh we mate, but I’m only 200 years old it will be another two hundred before I need to think about hatchlings. Then I shall mate once, lay three eggs, one female and two male. They will hatch and grow for a hundred years, the female will probably replace me as I’ll have reached the end of my life; one of the males will kill the other and then go and find a male to fight. If he’s lucky he’ll win and take over if he isn’t he’ll die”.

“Sex once in five hundred years; I feel sorry for you, I really hope it’s good when it happens, but I’m going to enjoy myself a bit more than that”.

“Not tonight you aren’t; at least not until Peachbum knows I want ten elephants outside the port tomorrow morning”.

The third voice appeared in my head “I’ve heard you oh glorious one, it will be arranged”.

“Good, at least you know how to behave properly in front of me. This girl has far too many of her own ideas”.

And with that I felt her go, like something had exploded inwards suddenly in my head leaving me back in possession; was Peachbum gone too.

“No she’s pulled us so close I can hear you think, before it was just emotions, but now it’s like we’re dreamspeaking as normal”.

“When I go to my direwolf all I get is emotions and feelings, but then I’m not sure a direwolf thinks in the way we do”. I realised I’d nearly said humans do and Peachbum wasn’t human, but she definitely thought like me.

“Interesting, maybe one night we’ll manage a threesome with this direwolf”.

The word threesome immediately conjured up an inappropriate thought in my mind. I realised despite the mental slap and conversation with the dragon, there was bit of me between my legs that was still moderately aroused and telling me to get on with it, but now…

“Don’t stop yourself Arya, you were enjoying it. I know it might seem a bit strange but this is going to happen again so you might as well get used to it”.

“Are you sure”.

“I’d be upset if you stopped just because of me”.

The question was how would I feel if I didn’t stop. To hell with it, I’d worry about that tomorrow. I dipped my fingers lower to get them wet again and started making little circles on my rubbing button. In the end I realised that I’d put on a bit of a show, I’d deliberately stopped twice just as it was getting critical and when I did finally allow myself to go over the top and down the waterfall it with a really big shuddering finish that left me panting and sweaty. The trouble was it didn’t leave me feeling sleepy, in fact just the opposite and I was pretty sure I knew why. “Peachbum are you still there”

“Yes”

“Well that was it, that was a good one, except for having to do it by myself. It feels better when there’s two, not the actual physical feelings, but the emotions are different when it’s shared”. I could feel a sense of unease, I realised she was trying not to think, which could only mean she didn’t want to upset me, because I’d upset her”.

“No you haven’t upset me”.

“Then why, you were definitely trying not to think so it wasn’t ‘that was great’ you were trying to avoid. Be honest with me”.

“You’re right, but it’s not a competition, it’s just that that wasn’t really very intense for me and it certainly didn’t last anywhere near as long as I’d expect”.

Oh, that put me down well and truly.

“We’re different Arya. I know we can interbreed but we don’t for two reasons, firstly the offspring are sterile, secondly the sex doesn’t really work out”.

“So it has happened”.

“Oh yes, years ago when we first met humans, both sides gave it a try and we both gave it up, pretty much by mutual consent. That’s why Balls is bothered by you just tickling his fancy, he knows if he did lay you down with your initial consent you’d be crying stop before he’d really got himself warmed up and he’s far too much of a gentleman to want to hurt you doing something you ought to be enjoying”.

“So what did it feel like”.

“Well when one the youngsters, or a subordinate male mounts me, what we call playsex, it doesn’t feel that good for me, in fact I barely get aroused at all but I think it’s probably about what the male feels”.

“Whoa hang on; so playsex means someone other than Bigballs inside you. What does he think of that.”

“He’s not really bothered, they’re not really regarded as proper males, it’s almost like they‘re considered semi sexless. They don’t produce fluid they just seem to get to a very quick finish, then they hop off and we all get on with whatever we were doing before”.

“And does Bigballs do the same to you outside the mating season”.

“No it’s funny once they go silver, which only happens when they win a fight and get a harem of wives they drop playsex”.

Sometimes you can only take in so much at once. Everything my parents would have though normal just went out of the window with the Nai S. If I ever felt the Raven in my brain, if I could feel the Raven, maybe Bran already knew I was here. Whatever, if he did know, now or later it would give him something to tell the others that would seriously shock them. “Peachbum I think I’m going to sleep now, but the more you tell me the more I want to know about your people so we need to do this again”.

“Sleep tight little one, we’ve plenty of time”.


	22. A reminder everything isn't milk and honey here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've got to have a bit of suspense occasionally and my clothes may go missing again.

It was a pleasant night and I’d really stayed too late with Peachbum, but when Bigballs tried to insist he walked me home I firmly said no. I was in my Nai S body and they all went to bed with the sun so there was no risk of even mild harassment in my mind, the locals who might want playsex would be in bed and the few seamen on the docks wouldn’t touch a local for fear of what a male would do in retaliation.

I was about half way home when I heard noises, there were some juveniles out and they were running around playing even in the dark. I went into killer mode and started walking the edges of the buildings, checking corners before I crossed streets, the noises went past me I relaxed a bit and turned a corner on one lone youth taking a furtive piss up the wall. I looked at him, he looked at me, then the chase was on. I bolted directly away from him first to maximise distance then started to think which way to go. Unfortunately that had taken me back towards his mates, suddenly I was turning sharp right to avoid running into them, that let him cut the corner. I reassessed took two quick turns and then stopped completely and went hard up against the wall in a dark corner. That worked he overshot me and I backtracked slowly and quietly with the sound of him going the other way fading steadily.

This was getting just a bit unsettling so I started to jog to get home quicker. I got to the end of the quay, our house was at the other end, about a quarter of a mile so I slowed to a walk again, but half way down I realised I could still hear someone following me. I turned and looked back, nothing visible, I kept walking backwards for a few steps, it’s not difficult if you practice and remember what you’ve seen before you turn. What I’d forgotten was it was a windy night and this was dockyard. The swinging ships yardarm caught me on the side of the head and knocked me straight off the quay and onto the deck of a ship. I landed hard, only really part conscious already and although I semi rolled I took a second hit on my head. The world went black. I can’t have been out for more than a minute or two but when I came to there was a man stood over me holding a belaying pin and I could hear/feel others behind me. I could hear words, but they weren’t speaking trader. I was just bracing my arms on the deck when hands grabbed me from behind and pinned my shoulders. It was at this point I realised I couldn’t feel bodyhair. I twisted my head down and realised that my breasts were sat there in front of me. I’d been unconscious long enough to revert to human form. Then someone else clamped a hand on my mouth. That made three behind me.

It was obvious what was coming next. The man in front of me had dropped his breeches and was pulling his shirt back. I tried to use my feet to get some purchase on the deck to lever my shoulders, but all I achieved was to thrust my hips in his direction. He seemed to take that as encouragement because he paused, grinned and said something to the three behind me. The hand over my mouth moved, careless I could get my mouth open. I didn’t think it would do any good; I was too far from the houses and the dockyard wasn’t always quiet at night so a noise might not get a response but there was only one option, as the man in front grabbed my legs and forced them open I bit hard and when the hand moved screamed.


	23. Every action has an opposite reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's an attempt at non-consensual sex here and I still may not have any clothes.

I’d hoped the scream might get some response but was resigning myself to the first man at least getting into me when something very large hit him from behind. A lot of weight and bodies hit me and drove all the wind out of me. Then while I gasped for air it all went away equally as suddenly. I realised hands were letting go but I was too busy curling onto a foetal ball and gasping for breath to do anything about it. Then there was a roar, gods I nearly wet myself; it was so loud and visceral. I managed to start to move and look and realised the noise and the big black body was Bigballs. He was stood on the deck holding the bloke with the scabby cock by his throat in one hand with his arm extended upwards. The guy was a foot off the floor and clearly running out of air. Then he stepped up to me and picked me up. He curled his arm round me and tucked me up under his armpit and walked up the gangplank onto the quay. When he got us on dry land he turned round and kicked the gangplank away and threw scabby cock onto the deck. He landed with a limp thud and didn’t move.

Next we went down to the mooring lines, they came off and were thrown back on board. I could see men standing on the deck, but none of them were moving. The ship started to slowly drift away from the quay. I was gently put down then he turned round to some part loaded cargo behind him, heaved a large barrel of salt fish over his head and threw it. The crew moved just fast enough to avoid being hit but it splintered the deck and split throwing fish everywhere. “Go”; it was one word in trader, they didn’t need anymore, the yard was hauled in and boat was heading out of the harbour.

I was just starting to wonder where Arya had got to and was she stopping the night or should we go out and have a look when I heard a massive bellow from along the dockside. That wasn’t good news in some way. I went outside and several of the crew had come out of the other house. We started out towards the noise. We got about halfway down the quay when I saw Bales coming the other way with something under his arm. He was pointedly staring head of him and not down at what he was carrying and I realised why, it was Arya in human form and she was naked. He just kept going to the house, put her down at the door, patted her bottom and said “Stay” in trader, then he rounded on me. A finger jabbed me in the chest knocking me about a foot backwards “Protect her better” and he turned away and walked off. No, that’s not right, he didn’t walk he swaggered. Whatever had happened at the other end of the quay I knew who’d won the argument.

By the time BigBalls had got to the house I’d calmed down. I’d got my breath back, I’d been stupid and nearly got hurt as a result but I was alive; I’d just have to apologise to him at some point, but I as fine with that it was me that had screwed up. He was carrying me very gently and he put me down with just as much care. The ‘pat’ on my bum that propelled me a foot into the house was therefore deliberate and the instruction to ‘Stay’ didn’t need an answer. I took a couple more steps into the building then turned to see him jab a finger at Stanson before walking back down the quay towards his own home.

Marcus came straight over to me.

“Are you alright”.

“Yes my pride’s taken a battering and I’ll have a few bruises but nothing serious got seriously injured. I owe BigBalls an apology, because if I’d listened to him it wouldn’t have happened. I need to go and see him first thing and I’ m afraid I’m going to need an escort”.

“Oh you’ll get an escort; he made that quite plain to me. He thinks I’ve let you down and in one sense I agree with him. I try to let you do what you want whenever possible, but in future maybe I should be more insistent that you behave in what I consider a safe manner. I’d do it on ship and I know you’d obey me so maybe on land I’m going to suggest” I chose the word carefully “that you need to think a bit more about your own personal safety”.

“And I think I’m going to accept some of your suggestions skipper”. I had to acknowledge Stanson and Bigballs weren’t telling me what to do just to massage their egos, they genuinely just wanted me to be safe.

“We were up early next morning. Arya got dressed in what passed for her best clothing, then Haerd, Elog and I went across to Bales with her.

I was pretty nervous, just how long a talk was I going to get. If the other crew had had weapons Bales might have actually got hurt.

We approached the house and Cuddles came barreling out to greet us, climb up Arya and get a ride back inside.

That made feel a bit more secure I didn’t think he’d get too shouty with his son round my neck. If anything it was worse, he was the next one out of the door although Peachbum was right behind him and clearly waiting to come to me. He walked up to me, gave me an ‘I’m disappointed in you’ look, the sort I’d once had from my father when I’d really overstepped boundaries, the he turned round and motioned the men to go with him. They walked off together and Peachbum came up to me and grabbed my hand.

“I know pretty well what happened, but he did get there in time didn’t he, no one actually stuck anything they shouldn’t into you”.

“No, I banged my head but otherwise I’m completely unhurt. I really need to apologise to him again though”.

“No you don’t; he said to me this morning, ‘She thinks she’s older than she is, she’s still in the grown but silly years, but she’s clever enough to have learned better from last night’”.

That was a relief, I just had to remember to live up to it, but “What do you mean the ‘grown but silly’ years”.

“I’ve told you we’re physically grown aged four to six, but we tend to be not really calmed down in our minds for another two or three years. We take risks, try different things just because they’re different, then we grow out of it and become a lot more sensible and stable. I think he’s right; I don’t know how long you’ve got to go but you’re still in that period”.

I’d never had that idea put to me before, but in my late twenties I started to realise I was growing out of exactly that sort of behaviour.

Bales took us round the back of the house. He didn’t look mad but clearly we were going to do something. We came to a ring marked in the grass, bundles of straw semi-buried to make a circle. Asimi was there clearly waiting for us. He handed out a loincloth each. Oh shit, we were going to have to fight Bales as a ritual humiliation for our poor behaviour. Bales was putting his loincloth on and showing Haerd how to do it. Asimi got the other two of us into one each.

I was first up, feet planted both hands on the ground but balance your weight, so when Asimi grunted ‘Go’ we both went at each other. Well I went at him, he let me hit him, took hold of the belt of the loincloth in his right hand and flipped me over so I landed on my back with a fairly solid thud. I’m pretty sure he was being careful because my head seemed to stay off the ground.

Elog came next; this was the fight that worried me, Elog was older than me and frankly a bit fat. I needn’t have worried he lifted him off his feet, one hand holding his loincloth and lifting, the other holding his shoulder so he didn’t fall and just walked to the edge of the ring and put him down outside.

Last was Haerd. “Don’t do anything daft, he’s trying not to hurt us. Push him too far and he’ll really chuck you across town”. I could see by the look in Haerd’s eyes that comment had been wasted; Haerd was used to winning, well it was his choice. I looked at Bales he was also clearly not taking this round as a joke. Haerd had one advantage, longer reach. Neither of them charged, they were fencing with their hands, slapping the others hand away, moving round the circle each looking for a good grip. The fight kept going; I looked at Asimi, he was nodding in approval. Then Haerd changed tactics and tried a sudden rush; I was waiting for the the crash as he hit Bales and bounced, but instead the big guy stepped neatly sideways and before Haerd could stop himself he just helped him out of the ring with a gently shove from behind. Haerd came back to me and shrugged, “You tried and you managed better than either of us”.

Honour had apparently been satisfied. I wasn’t sure Arya wasn’t now strictly on loan to me from Bales, but since no one said anything I wasn’t going to ask. We spent the rest of the day walking round learning trader by the simple point and say method.


	24. The flowers that bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm still growing up, things happen that make that obvious. This leads to more discussion of how things work sexually in a different culture.

I was round at Peachbum’s of course when it happened, which was probably a godsend. Hardly surprising really I was round at Peachbum’s most of the time. I shouldn’t really call it Peachbum’s she wasn’t even the senior female in the household, that was her mother and to any Nai S it was definitely BigBall’s place. To make it all that bit worse however Bigballs and Stanson were with us as well which was far less usual. We females had had a very nice lunch and taken to the bath, and Peachbum was teaching me more about the Nai S. Their lifespan is shorter than ours, reaching fifty is considered an achievement, however they are considered adult and females start to breed aged six to eight and males start work at this age. Babies are born weighing three or four pounds, which results in far lower death rates of both mothers and babies than we experience. Finally females never stop breeding, there is an expression ‘the Death baby’ to cover the child who is born to a mother who successfully weans them and then dies of old age. This is considered normal and of little consequence as such children are always raised by their father’s other females.

So Peachbum was only twenty, but she’d been a mother twice and expected to be so again. Cuddles was four and big for his age so his early sign of sexual interest in me was actually something his mum was quite proud of. She was hoping he’d grow well and become a dominant male. Her next comment though jolted me a little bit.

“I would be really proud if he took over here”.

“How”.

“Simple, beat his father in the annual fights. The males fight every year to determine dominance structures and determine harem control just before the mating season. They’re very serious competitions, but they’re also very carefully organised so that while they’re a serious test no one actually gets permanently injured. Two of them meet in a ring and the first one out of the ring or forced to the floor loses. It is the only time they wear clothing, a loin cloth is used to protect the mating parts; eye gouging and biting are also prohibited”.

“So he’d challenge his dad, win and take over the younger females, but what about you, would you be like your mum just part of the family”. I had a suspicion I knew the answer to this but I wanted it spelled out, then I was going to have to think carefully how to talk about it to Stanson. I’d heard him make some comments about the Lannisters that indicated he’d didn't hold with incest”.

“No, why should I give up sex for that; we may not do it often but when we do we really enjoy ourselves. Why would you want to miss out on that. I’m sorry your face is saying to me that this a bit of a shock I thought you’d realised Balls mother is also one of his females”.

“Er no, it’s not the way we do things. So exactly who is related to who and how”.

“Blossom is my mother, Slowly is my aunt, Honey and Hairy are my full sisters, Balls is my half-brother; Slender, Tubby and Twitcher are all half-sisters. Is that enough or do you want to go through the children as well”.

Deep breath “No I suspect it gets a bit complicated after that”.

“Well yes and no because we don’t really think about it much. We’re Balls harem and these are our children. So how do you do it”.

So I explained about one man one woman and while I was at it about our monthly cycles.

“Well it’s your choice, but I wouldn’t want some middle weight nonentity to myself in exchange for a share in Bales, not only do I get more status but my children are going to be cleverer and stronger”.

I didn’t try and argue, then she really floored me.

“So is this ‘Skipper’ your man, you seem pretty attached to him travelling this far together”.

“No, actually arguably he works for me, I pay for him to run the ship” I didn’t think it was worth bringing Sansa’s part in this into it.

“So you’re old enough to be sexually active, even if only just and you’re fertile all the time, so presumably you want sex all the time and you’re doing nothing about finding someone to have sex with. The one attraction I can see to the way your body works and you’re wasting it”.

“If I have sex I’ll get pregnant and I don’t want children, at least not yet”. I was beginning to feel pinned down by her questions. It must have shown on my face.

“I’m sorry I can see I’ve said the wrong thing. We are very different but we are both what we are, and you’re a lovely person so again I’m sorry”.

She was the second person who seemed determined to see me as a nice person. I wasn’t sure I deserved that, she didn’t know enough about me. “It’s not your fault; things have happened in my life that make me a difficult person to get on with. Sometimes I don’t think I’m actually someone who people should like”. She pulled me closer, cuddled me like she would her son.

“I refuse to believe anything bad about you until I see you do something bad, so you’d better get used to the idea”.

I’m not sure what I might have said next, or what I might have done; I was very close to crying, but I was saved by the arrival of Cuddles who slightly competitively squeezed between us to make sure he wasn’t missing out on his share of the hugging and then actually ended up in my arms. It was so easy with him he was warm, he was furry it was like hugging Nymeria when she’s been a puppy. It was when things got older and bigger it got complicated. To the Seven Hells with it, I was going to just let myself enjoy the feeling of Cuddles in my arms.

Peachbum seemed to realise I wanted some time and said nothing, we just lay there, warm and comfy.

“Arya, you know you told me your cycle didn’t work and you don’t bleed like you should at your age”.

“Yes it’s probably that I’m underweight, we were on limited food on the ship and before that I was travelling a lot and fighting and all sorts of things so I don’t always eat a lot”. It occurred to me that in the last five or six weeks I’d probably been as well fed as any time in the last five years. My previously saggy boobs had filled out quite satisfyingly, they might even be a bit bigger than they had been. Stanson had said the other day that I was looking healthier. Good; being here was good I should remember that.

“Arya I don’t want upset you again, but I think you’re bleeding”.

Shit – I desperately tried to look between my legs but Cuddles was on my lap. I hung on to him and stood up and stepped out of the bath. Yes there in the water where I’d been were little swirls of red twisting into shapes made by my having moved. “Oh god I’m sorry”

“What for”.

“I’ve made a mess in your bath, you’ll have to clean it all out”.

“Nonsense, if I swirl it around a bit and mix it in; there it’s all gone. You’re upset again, oh Arya why”.

“It’s seen as dirty where I come from, it’s something we keep to ourselves, well maybe a close friend like you would know”. I put Cuddles down and looked at my legs, there were red streaks running down both legs, even with my fur it was clearly visible. He was looking up at them. Then just as I was trying to get a mental grip on myself Stanson and BigBalls walked in; could it get any worse.

Bales lead me into the bathroom having made me get undressed in his room. He was determined I was going to join in the family soak and no messing about pretending I had to wear clothing ‘When with the Nai S’. He provided a bit of a distraction at our entrance by jumping into the middle of the bath, creating a huge splash and provoking all the women to shout at him so no one was looking at me. No one that is except Arya who’s eyes locked with mine, she looked terrified. She was out of the bath with Cuddles wrapped round her legs so I walked round to her. “All alright”.

“No I need to get out of here now, but without it looking forced and then I’ll need some of your clothes”. I could feel the panic rising in me, but if I could get to wherever he’d put his clothes I was having his breeches, whatever he thought and the I could get back to the house and sort myself out. Then Cuddles blew my cover, for the second time I felt him running a finger across my body, only this time it was going up my leg, then he sniffed the resulting red splotch on his finger and finally offered it to Marcus for inspection.

I believe there’s a saying ‘Out of the mouths of babes and children’, well in this case it was from the fingers but the result was the same; I realised why she was looking so upset, she’d started a moonbleed presumably in the bath as well. Her face said this was more than she could cope with so I decided it was time to wade in and surprise her. I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a hug “My little girls grown up, well done, I said you were looking healthier and this is the proof”.

I wasn’t sure I believed what he was saying; I certainly didn’t have anything to say back.

She wasn’t talking to me that meant something was really wrong, or at least she was really screwed up in her head. “Relax no one else is making a fuss and I’ve had a wife and a daughter start bleeding in all sorts of inconvenient places over the years so I’m not going to”. I saw Rodakino had got out of the bath and she took Arya’s hand.

“Your man seems happy with you; and you may not think he’s your man but I think he’s behaving like he is. If you both want to go home just wave bye bye and come with me”.

Stanson let go of me and took my other hand. He did the waving and they both walked me out of the bathroom and with him leading into Bales room where his clothes were. No one else seemed to notice; Bigball’s arrival had been a good distraction, however unintended.

She was bit unsteady on her feet but I got her into Bales room and sat her down on the floor where any stain would easily be wiped away. Rodakino was looking at me, this was the time I really wished we could talk as easily as she and Arya did. She said ‘Dress’ in trader and pointed at my clothes, then went back to hugging Arya.

Stanson sat me down on the floor which was cold hard stone and funnily that cut through all the other things, ‘Ah’ my bum was cold. Peachbum was hugging me again and just making vague soothing sounds and I thought ‘Get a grip girl, it’s not a knife wound, you’re not dying’. She let go of me a bit.

“No it’s just you growing up, but if people seeing it is an issue then put his pants on”.

I realised Marcus was stood in front of me holding his britches out. They were far too big but they were also very loose and dark red. I took them from him and put them on. Doing something seemed to finish the calming process off. I looked at them both and said/thought “I’m better now thanks. I don’t know why I panicked suddenly I feel very emotional”. It was Marcus who answered me.

“That’s growing up, massive rushes of unexplained emotions and no idea how to cope with them. You’ll get the hang of it though, my kids manged to so I’m sure you can”. I got a bit of a smile for that. So she’d got my pants on, what was I going to wear. I pulled my shirt over my head and accepted that it only just covered my manhood, but it would have to do. Then Rodakino handed me a loincloth, the same thing I'd been wearing for the 'fight' with Bales. She ve nhelped me wrap it round and tucked the last end in, before giving my wedding tackle a friendly pat.

It was funny watching Peachbum wrap him in one of what had to be BigBall’s fighting loincloths, she just did it regardless of the slightly nervous look on his face and finished by patting his cock as if to say ‘There that’s neatly out of the way’. It made me realise I wasn’t the only one who found normal Nai S behaviour unsettling.

We said our good-byes to Rodakino and Cuddles and walked back to the house. As we got close to home I thought I’d better ask. “Do you want to try and go round the back and slip in unnoticed”.

“No that will only make it more noticeable, just walk in like we’re coming home on any other day”.

So we did and she was right none of the crew who were outside said anything.

We got into the house and I got his pants off, no bloodstains, and gave him them back. My rags were in my room and I let myself slide back to human shape so they had a waist to tie round. The tapes were getting a bit short, my hips/bum must be growing as well. He’d not followed me into my room so I went back out to find him getting us some food. “Tell the crew what’s happened. They may have said nothing out there but they noticed and I’m not making up implausible stories”.

“Right, apart from Haerd, they’re all fathers. They probably won’t say anything to your face”.

“That will be a change then”.

Good she was starting to make jokes again “No but I think most of them will be pleased for you, there will a group feeling of ‘Our little girls grown up’ like when we take a young lad to a brothel for the first time or we find out they’re properly courting”.

I wasn’t sure I liked the first comparison but it was another good feeling of belonging.


	25. Sometimes a girl just gets emotional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What started in the last chapters doesn't stop in 24 hours you know.

It was the fifth day of my bleed, it was heavy, I’d never produced half this amount before. I was washing out rags and barely getting them dry before I need them back on again. I was getting tired, it was a good job we weren’t working watches. Peachbum was coming round to the house so I didn’t have to go out. She’d told me no Nai S woman produced this much blood, so I tried changing but outward appearance obviously wasn’t internal arrangements, after five minutes there were sticky red smears down both thighs. I went back to my human form and put the rags back on.

She was getting run down, I could see it in her eyes. The amount of washing going on made it obvious she was bleeding heavily. I dragged my mind back to my daughter’s first time, what had my wife done. Liver that had been her answer. I found Haerd and Piot our cooks and gave them the challenge.

Haerd came and found me in my room at dinnertime.

“We need you next door, Piot and I have had a cooking contest and it’s your job to adjudicate”.

I didn’t want to adjudicate, but I had to admit the knowledge that they’d both cooked something special was tempting. Off the ship with a wider choice of material than salt meat and pickled cabbage I’d quickly realised both of them were very good cooks. Typically male though, it got competitive, who’s roast meat was the juiciest, who’s pudding was sweetest without being too sweet. So I got up and went next door thinking I’d at least enjoy the food.

They’d excelled themselves, there were platefuls. In particular today’s challenge had been liver. I’d never liked liver because we only seemed to get it as big lumps cooked to death in a stew, but cook had always wanted us to eat it because it was ‘Good for growing girls when it matters’ and mother had always backer her up. Ah! the meaning of that phrase, largely lost on a nine year old me, suddenly became apparent and here I was being asked to eat two large platefuls of the stuff. My they were subtle, I could imagine the table conversation ‘She looking a bit peeky, it’s that time of the month, she needs some liver down her’. Still when it arrived I had to admit it looked a lot better than any liver I’d been offered before. They sat me down and we had a few shellfish, largish prawns for starters. This was apparently just to make sure I was at table ready as each dish was prepared. Haerd had soaked his in milk and then poached it, he served it with a thick creamy sauce; Piot had sliced his so thin I didn’t know how he’d managed it and then fried it literally for a minute. I could just stick the strips with a knife and eat them. They were gorgeous, nothing like any liver I’d had before. I prefer roast or fried food so I knew which one I liked most, but I wasn’t going to pander to their competition and they had both been for too good to criticise so I announced a draw.

I was pleased, she was learning diplomacy, a draw pleased both of them. I was also pleased to see how much she’d eaten already and we had puddings to come.

There was more after the meat; by the time we’d finished I’d had to loosen the strings holding my pants up. I looked down at a stomach that was clearly a bulge beneath my boobs. I don’t think I’d ever been this overfed and they’d done this deliberately for me. Elog was walking past behind me and had obviously seen me adjusting my ties and looking at myself.

“If you look after that for another six months you can give birth to it”.

Elog, the man who had probably spoken to me less than anyone else on the crew, even on watch handover was joking with me and I knew it wasn’t a snide joke, it wasn’t ‘Haha you look a fatty’ it was, I didn’t know quite what it was, but I knew he meant it lovingly. I realised there were tears running down my face. I couldn’t sit here like this in front of them all. I bolted back to my own house and bedroom.

I’d heard Elog’s comment and wondered how she’d take it, I was expecting a quip back maybe something like ‘but then I’d lose it while your beer gut will be with you forever’. Instead she burst into tears and ran out. Elog’s face fell a mile, I knew he was really nervous round Arya and the first time he’d tried to crack a joke she’d run off. I went over to him “Better luck next time”

“Ay I screwed that up didn’t I; do I go and say sorry or will that make it worse”.

“I’m not sure, give her a few minutes and see if she comes back, if not at least she’ll have had time to calm down”.

I got into my room and threw myself on the bed. The tears were still running from my eyes and I didn’t know why. I knew Elog was being nice they were all being good and nice and caring; was that what I couldn’t take, too many people being nice to me. I sat up and thought of what I’d have said if Sansa had done this in front of me, Gods I’d have given her stick for being girly, girly. That squared me up a bit. I got up and wiped my face. I was not going to descend to those levels. I went back outside and across to face the rest of them.

Elog and I were just weighing up who should go to her when she marched back into the room. She stopped at the door and made an announcement.

“Lads I apologise; that was frankly unforgivably girly of me. You deserve better from me and ‘that time of the month’ is no excuse in my book. Elog it wasn’t your fault. Now is there some booze around here a girl might just want to get a bit tipsy”, and I did although not too tipsy to walk home and put myself to bed.


	26. Next Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot, pure plot

I decided I needed to ask everyone what they wanted to do next. I pointed out Arya had been told by the Dragon that we couldn’t go home, which disappointed a couple of the cleverer ones who’d worked out that with the wind they might be home a lot faster than we’d come. After that there was a lot of muttering and ‘you’re the skipper’ comments, which essentially meant they hadn’t thought about it so I gave them three options, first walk away here, stay with the Nai S, retire, they would get enough money from Arya to live on. Second stay with us until we got the ship sorted and went as far as a more human society and then leave. I had to make the point that while she’d give them some money off the boat we couldn’t guarantee its value in other places. Finally stop with us while we sailed round the Dragon Lands. Piot immediately asked if there was a halfway house, stay on the boat for now but go at a later date either when you’d had enough or you liked the place we were or you saw another opportunity. I said that was option three; no one was signing up for life they were just saying for now they’d stay on. That settled that, I had a crew and we were going sailing as soon as we had a working ship again.

We all put quite a bit of time into learning Trader. Most of the crew picked up ordering food and drink easily enough then gave up. Haerd, Elog, Piot, Arya and I had no choice but to push on. Piot and Haerd got quite good at it and made efforts to improve wherever we went, particularly in widening their trading or sailing vocabulary. Elog and I tried our best but we just never were very good. The consequence of this was a lot more responsibility for Piot and Haerd, which one relished and the other didn’t. Arya could probably have been better, she usually understood what was being said to her, but seemed to struggle to remember enough vocabulary for anything but the simplest replies. I think the fact that she could dreamspeak to Rodakino for anything complex always gave her a get out. Later in other ports that was to catch up with her.

I have to explain trader for those of you who don’t trade and just speak your own language, which I assume will be most of the readers of this book. Trader is based on twenty four letters/sounds and is mostly composed of quite short words that read consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, repeat as necessary, so lama is the meat lamb, foda is the generic term for food. A lot of these words are quite similar across many of the languages of the Dragon Lands and even my own mother tongue, which I might conclude means they all come from an ancient common tongue. For verbs the last vowel has a meaning. For nouns, adjectives and adverbs it’s always e pronounced as a double ee would be. For verbs it’s dependent on the meaning of the verb e, pronounced as in bet is asking a question, a is a positive, o pronounced owe is the negative. There are no words like I or the, no tenses for the future or later, these things are all inferred from the tone of the voice, or the context of the sentence. So - kick hard ball small - kike hada bala lita, with an e for kick is will you kick, kika in a normal tone of voice is I will kick, in a forceful voice it’s the order to someone else to kick, with an o ending kiko it’s either I won’t kick or don’t kick, again depending on the tone. Word order as shown is always verb, adverb, noun, adjective.

It’s a very easy language to use for simple things like buying corn or selling jewellery, getting a shipment to a specific place. If you try to use it for complex philosophical discussions or discussing abstract ideas it just doesn’t work.

The final issue was the boat. The Petrel has done a marvellous job getting us here, but she was seriously damaged and would need a lot of repair. It was also obvious walking down the quay that the local boats were of very different design. Occasional massive storms excepted, the winds in the Sunrise Islands were generally quite light, using the land and sea breezes was your best way to move around and apparently the rest of the Dragon lands weren’t much different. The Nais S who admittedly didn’t really leave home generally rowed. Their fishing boats had three banks of twenty oars on each side. They went out to catch migratory shoals of surface fish literally chasing them down then surrounding them with a single net held between two boats. This however was a local thing and not fit to travel long distances.

I asked around the dockside and as my trader got better it was obvious the normal small boat was about the size of the Petrel but with a single fore and aft rigged mast with the main sail between two booms and a second topsail from the upper boom to the mast and a massive foresail from the mast not just to the bow but out onto a bowsprit. These boasts had probably twice the sail area of the Petrel. I wasn’t sure how well they’d cope with stronger winds although the skippers assured me they went further North where there were strong trade winds. Longer vessels also existed with twin masts. In the end a couple of the skippers of visiting vessels agreed to let the Nai S carpenters on to their boats to measure their rig to make me a copy so a repair job was agreed.

Before we started work I needed to get some useable coinage so we took two coins to Enkephalous’ office where he collected port taxes and he agreed to give us weight for weight in smaller gold coins and then some silver to balance out any difference. A simple fulcrum balance was brought out and one of the coins was balanced against a piece of local gold. Then they measured the length of the two arms and came up with a relative value in gold for one of our coins. The answer was seven and a bit. They doubled checked with the second coin and got the same answer near enough. Total it up and it came to just under fifteen and a half. So we got fifteen gold coins, not all from the same nation but all the same weight and therefore value. Then they went to get the silver to make up the ‘nearly half’ and came back with a box full I couldn’t lift.

They sorted the money out and brought us our loose change, the silver coins, in a box about two feet by three square. Brains told us that he’d already deducted the our dockside taxes and a few other bills Big Balls had paid for us in advance. It was still a massive amount of silver. I could see Stanson looking at it thinking we ought to have brought two of the crew to carry it. Big Balls picked it up in one hand and said ‘Shall we go’. The look on Stanson’s face was a picture, although he was old he kept himself fit, he was a hands on sailor, but he’d have struggled to shift it and Big Balls had just lifted it and walked off. I couldn’t resist as we walked out of the door. “You could challenge him for his harem in a few weeks; he says he’s getting old and isn’t half as strong as he was when he was Silver”.

I wasn’t going to rise to something like that “I doubt I could beat your pal Rodakino. It’s you who needs to be careful, one bout of playsex and you’ll bruised for life”.

So we’d got the money it was round to the dockyard to arrange the repairs. The response was favourable but the time lines weren’t instant not least because with the mating season coming up large parts of society shut down; while the dominant males went away the subordinates took a holiday. Still the process had commenced and we would be able to carry on further West to visit more of the Dragon Lands.


	27. Keeping it in the family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discussion of incest by others

“What do you think about incest skipper”.

“Good morning Marcus, did you sleep well, I’m sorry if I disturbed you last night, is there any breadfruit left. These are the things polite young ladies ask when they have come to the breakfast table. I appreciate the fact that you no longer threaten me with a knife when asking me to pass you food or water, but we must now try to raise our sights a little higher”.

“Very funny skipper, but I’m serious. Back home it’s about the one thing everyone except the Lannisters can agree on, no incest. Even the Old Gods and the Severn agree on no incest

“Well I might observe that you and I no longer have to worry about the problem; there not being a relative of either of us within six thousand miles and us being, as far as I’m aware unrelated”.

Momentarily this distracted me “Six thousand miles, you’ve worked it out then”.

“As near as I can so it’s a bit rough, we lost track of time during the storm, but if you remember midday, with the sun highest in the sky was getting towards the end of the first dog watch and some clever fellow on Essos once calculated the distance round the equator at about 22,000 miles so if I’m out it’s by a couple of hundred miles at most”.

He pushed a large parchment sheet across the table to me. On the left hand edge Megalo Limani on the right the very edges of Southern Westeros and the summer Isles, with Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya as tiny dots in the middle. I remembered he’d showed me this when we set out and said we’d run out of food before we ran out of parchment. He hadn’t been far wrong.

“Not sure why I bothered except to show interested, where did you come from, types though. I’d probably have done better to cut home off and reuse the rest of the sheet for something else”.

“It gives you a sense of completeness, you set out to find something this is the map that proves you did. Now back to the subject of incest”.

I decided it was time to stop playing her. “Well it’s good for cows and sheep and so on and the Nai S seem to make it work in much the same way, but I wouldn’t recommend it back home. Yes the Lanisters seem to get away with it, but ordinary folk, even high born, you know the answer you get deformities, people who’s brains function even less well than the average local idiot. So should it be practiced in societies who live in the way most humans do, no”.

“How did you find out about the Nai S, you’re always saying you still can’t master trader so all you and BigBalls do is sit and drink when he invites you round.”

“Well we were doing introduce the family and a language lesson in one. So he started with the youngest female and her child since the relationship was obvious and then went round the room doing mother and child, including the old lady. Then we did brother sister with two of the boys, as both being children of the one mother, the he went round everyone in the room except his mother and the youngest. She is one of Silver’s, but Silver is his brother so I think the top three families are all pretty much interrelated”.

“So how can it work for them but be so dangerous for us”.

“Because they don’t let three quarters of the males mate, any weakness gets left on the side. Bales has shown me, very gently, how the fights go, it’s not just about strength there’s a lot of tactics and subtle skills to it. Weaklings and idiots don’t win so they never get to have children”.

“I suppose so”.

“I’ll be honest it’s the one thing about these folk I find hardest to take. You joke about the Lannisters, but outside of the aristocratic houses it’s not considered a joke it’s considered an abomination. It will be interesting to see if they get to keep the habit up now they aren’t in power”.

“Well that will for us always be an great unknown”.

“True, whereas for all of them the great unknown is ‘where’s that mad girl Arya hiding now’. I think we’ve goth best side of the bargain”.

“Do you really think anyone will bother we’re gone, since it's what they wanted”.

“Oh there’ll be those who think it’s a plot or some sort and there’ll be false sightings of poor girls who look like you and rumours you’re locked away in a dungeon for their safety until they really need you and then you’ll be let lose to strike again. Never underestimate the capacity of people to make up stories when they don’t have real information”.

I wasn’t getting homesick but it was the past and I wanted to move one “And now on a more cheerful note we’re invited to lunch at BigBalls”.

“Pardon”

“I said we’ve been invited to lunch at BigBalls house”.

“That sounds quite formal”.

“It is it sort of a going away meal because they want us to leave”.

“Any idea why”.

“It’s that time of year, fight season before mating season”.

“And we have to leave because”.

“You know Nai S society is based on the physical size of the males”.

“Yes I’d picked most of that up”.

“Well it means I’m fair game for any male who thinks he can take you”.

“Oh”.

“Yes, Peachbums’s heard one of her nephews saying he fancies his chances. He’s virtually still a juvenile but it’s a good chance for him to start a new harem and if it fails well I’m only a foreigner so it wasn’t really serious”.

“I thought about a couple of the nephews I’d been introduced to. I couldn’t have fought them forty years ago, now I’d be lucky not to get seriously damaged even in a ritual fight. I take it you and Rodakino have talked round the ‘cunning plan’ options”.

“Yes and there aren’t any; the only vaguely possible one is for BigBalls or Silver to claim me and you just give me up, but then I get taken out to the mating house in the country for the fertile period, so firstly I piss off the female who’s expecting to go this year and second I have to go through with the mating. They have a sense that it wouldn’t be honourable not to”.

“Is the Petrel going to be ready on time”.

“Let’s hope so”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bits of Westeros, the Summer Isles and the scale is from https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Known_world


	28. So we start wandering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very bad joke, a bit of sailing and some geography

“All aboard the skylark then”.

“You really do crack that gag every time we set out”.

“We all have our little foibles”. The Petrel was repaired; the new rig in place, the lads in the shipyard had been persuaded for a bit more money that they wanted it done before the fight season which was sort of a national holiday if you weren’t fighting. With no real call to climb aloft the twelve of us could manager her, but it did mean Arya had to be a full member of my watch not just the spare man.

I was surprised how much that had meant to me, being a full member of the crew. As Stanson said, belonging to something was a part of who you were and I belonged to the Petrel. We were bound for a place called Hokomui, which was the nearest port where we’d find a human population. We were shipping salt fish and before we made the last run into human waters we’d stop at a Nai S port Teleftaío Fylákio and pick up some nuts or similar. The whole trip was not far short of 2,000 miles, but we were expecting mostly good reaching winds and to make five to six knots plus the current with us so we would only be at sea for a couple of weeks.

So it proved, we wasted a day in Teleftaío Fylákio in case Arya could find anything interesting. She found a deamspeaker but she was a member of a quite low level family, simple farmers. It was obvious that Megalo Limani was the height of Nai S sophistication and we had been hob knobbing with the local elite. Most other places were more rustic, pretty well everyone running a family farm. Still a contact in the farming community made getting a large quantity of some sort of local small nut quite simple. These actually sold better than the fish and we made a profit on the trip.

So here we were in Hokomuni, it was in all honesty a bit of a let-down. After the Nai S these were people, pretty much like us. We were still in a warm climate so pretty much everyone had dark hair but otherwise we could have been back in Westeros apart from the language barrier. They lived mostly in simple stone or brick buildings, wore plain tunics and sandals and appeared pray to all the usual vices of what I’d call ordinary people. The latter however cheered the crew, there were dockside brothels and off they went.

With the Nai S I found if I relaxed as though I wanted to go to sleep I could sense where the dreamspeakers were to make contact with them; in Hokomuni I couldn’t feel anyone so it was out on the streets and risk my dodgy trader. After a long day I came to the conclusion there was nothing more to be learned. I’m afraid it was the case that the Hokumuni were one of the people I just had to mark down as ‘ordinary’.

She was a bit upset, she’d convinced herself she could sail round the Dragon Lands and find enough different peoples to make the whole thing exciting and different. That seemed to me the rub, I’d noticed lots of little things in Hokomuni that were different from Westeros, but Arya wanted big things. I did wonder if the whole of the rest of her life was to be one long anti-climax, she’d achieved so much in a few years, no one can keep that sort of pace up for a long life and I was getting attached to her, I didn’t want her to do anything silly just for the excitement. “Realistically Arya how do you expect most places to be that different from a fairly consistent Dragon Lands version of normal”.

“You’re probably, predictably right. So where next”.

“Have a look at this. It’s virtually the complete Dragon lands down to the equator. No use for navigation, I’m getting better charts as we go along but you could mark down places of interest on it as we go along.

“It’s not the best map I’ve ever seen, like someone put a bunch of other maps together on a table and copied them”.

“That’s about what they did. I wasn’t paying the price they asked for the gold leaf illuminated originals, besides they’d not last in the salt air. At the entrance to the Inland Sea, here, is the Kyrotome Passage and the biggest city in the Dragon Lands, Kyrotome. Apparently it’s got a population of nearly one and a half million”.

“That’s about three times the size of King’s Landing”.

“Yes and they live in buildings several stories high, have running water, internal baths, use something called paper for money, get free food handouts and a whole lot of other stuff that just has to be made up”.

“Yes that’s got to be worth a visit”.

“I thought you’d think so, it’s also a great trading city so apparently you can take just about anything there and sell it at a profit. I’m loading up with lead they use for the water pipes, it’s heavy so the hold can only take so much then we fill the rest with food and go direct. It’s a good three and half thousand miles so we’ll be at sea for a month or two, but mostly in reach of land so we stop off if we want to”. So go we did.

On the way to Kyrotome I tried to find out about Stanson. “So come on skipper I deserve to know a bit about your history”.

“It’s a remarkably unremarkable story. I was born into a seafaring family, I grew up in a seafaring family, I went to sea. My father was away regularly as sailors are, but not always for months on end sometime he’d be back after a few days. Never long at home though, no one pays a sailor who’s in port and my father was good enough to keep himself occupied. When I went to sea I was doing what most children do follow their parent”.

“And have your children followed you”.

“Funnily no, my daughter is probably the nearest as she was married to a sailor. She’s widowed, he was lost at sea, so she takes in washing from visiting ships and I used to give her money if she’s short. She had the fee for this journey so that should keep her going. Your sister wasn’t a tightpurse when it came to paying. The two boys went their own ways. The elder is in the funery business, I have no idea why but he genuinely seems to enjoy it. The younger is the clever one, he’s apprentice to an apothecary”.

“Dealing with the dead, that would give me the creeps”.

“Yes and a lot of other people too. It’s something he doesn’t always mention to others, as he said ‘Once I tell people what I do the room goes quiet around me’”.

“Do you ever feel you should have been in another job”.

“It’s a bit late for that now, besides how do I know whether another job would have worked out better or worse. Think about this, sailings dangerous but I’m still here aged 60 plus, suppose I’d stayed on land and caught the flux or the plague one year. I could have been dead for 40 years. You can’t go back, you can and should learn from what’s happened to you but you can’t imagine that if you’d done something differently it would automatically be better than it is now”.

“So you have no regrets”.

“Oh yes I have regrets. I’ve got be honest no big ones, because as I said you can’t be certain life would have been better if it had been different; but there were things I did that if the people involved were still around I’d at least want to say sorry for and try and do something to make up for it if I could”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scale is from https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Known_world for consistency and I think the mountains are from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/108827/are-the-mountains-and-rivers-on-this-map-okay


	29. Kyrotome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a place you'll find we spend a lot of time in. It has a sex-shop [they're not living in the stone age]; I'm pretty sure it has Brothels too but I haven't found one yet.

We sailed in Kyrotome’s main harbour and just gaped. The dock was not just huge but packed; ships were moored three or four deep, cargo was being offloaded along multiple gangplanks laid out to form a highway to the ship being worked on. The ships were bigger too. We’d seen a couple of two masters en route but here they were the norm and I spotted several three masters, massive things.

The city probably didn’t occupy any more land than King’s Landing, but they’d not lied about the buildings. Even the simple shop/house arrangements that the small folk lived in were typically five to seven stories high. They were built of some sort of liquid stone you could poor into a wooden frame and let it set, then painted every bright colour you could imagine. The ground floor was always some sort of shop, they had shops for everything you could think of and things we’d never imagined. Then the floor above was a smart house, several rooms, its own plumbing, above that things got more basic, single rooms and shared the facilitates in the end room. Water came in pipes made of the lead we’d brought over. In the smart house level you had it piped into the house, above that you went and got it from a source in the street, it was piped from large liquid stone made canals running in from the hills to the North of the city. Underground there were tunnels to take the foul water away, the privy went down a pipe to these tunnels, do the job then chuck a bucket of water after it.

We rented a smart first level up house just away from the docks; enough space for all of us since a couple were always back on the ship on dock watch.

I settled down the first evening and ‘felt’ for a dreamspeaker.

“You’re not the dragon, how are you doing this, where are you”.

“My names Arya Stark, I’m not a local although I’m in the city now. I don’t quite know how I find other dreamspeakers but we can talk about that more tomorrow if we could meet and you could help me get used to the city”.

“Interesting; why not, tell me where you live and I’ll come over in the morning”.

“Er I’m not really sure we just rented the place today, not far from the docks going West”.

“Can you visualise the shops underneath you”.

I thought about that; I’d not really been looking except for the one with a massive prick hung out front two doors down.

“Ah Dodeshi’s, every girl in town knows Dodeshi’s. Wait outside the shop and I’ll find you”

“How will I recognise you”.

“When the blackest woman you’ve ever seen gets out of an eight man litter that will be me. I’m not easily missed”.

She was right; it seemed a bit weird hanging around in front of a shop that obviously sold fake male members so I watched the street from the window and ran down when I saw a large litter approaching. By the time they’d put it down I was only a couple of feet away. She was right I’d met dark skinned people in Braavos from further East but none as black as her, but that wasn’t the only thing that shocked me; her clothing was just out of this world.

The people I’d seen in general didn’t wear much, the men were in a loincloth and sleeveless jacket that seemed to be mostly to keep the rain off as it had a waxy surface, a hat that was an upturned cone that similarly rainwear and very simple one strap sandals. The women’s jackets had elbow length sleeves and were knee length; tied round the middle with a cloth sash, hats and sandals were the same. I suspected the woman might not have a loincloth on underneath, but it wasn’t something I could tell.

By comparison this woman was wearing four, no six layers of the same basic jacket pattern except that the hems were touching the floor and the sleeves reached the wrist, where each layer was just the little bit shorter so they were all visible in a series of multicolured stripes. The neck was similarly carefully arranged to show all six layers again. Looking at her feet I realised that part of her apparent height was a pair of sandals with four inch soles, presumably of polished painted wood. The effect was simultaneously totally magnificent and totally impractical. Here I realise was a woman who didn’t stand watch.

She was looking around so I stuck out my hand, stepped towards her and took hers “Hi I’m Arya”; she looked shocked.

“Murasaki, but we’re dreamspeaking and awake”.

“Yes have you never done that before”.

“I’ve never tried, the Dragon dreamspeaks me when he wants food, that’s it”

“I’ve done this before with a friend from the Nai S”.

“The Nai S, those hairy apes, I’m surprised they can speak at all”.

I wasn’t having that “Have you ever met one”.

“No”.

“Well then please don’t criticise what you don’t have experience of. They look no different to me than you do and having lived with them for months they are very intelligent and cultured people”.

“Well I must admit you’re the first person I’ve heard ever describe them that way, but you’re also the first person I’ve met who’s ever actually met one so I suppose you know better than me”.

The admission felt forced, but I let it ride “It’s very kind of you to come over, my house is over here”.

“House, oh you mean apartment, we only call it a house if you own the whole building, otherwise if you’ve got several rooms it’s an apartment”.

Suitable corrected I lead her into the building. The crew had cleared out to the docks to organise sale of the cargo and purchase of something else so we had the place to ourselves. She was obviously looking it over as she came in the she stood in front of me and inspected me as well. “I’m a sailor, I may own the ship but I’m also one of the working crew so I have to dress practically”.

“When you’re sailing perhaps, but if we’re going to be seen together I’m going to have to ask you to get some more suitable clothing. The apartment doesn’t matter we’ll meet people at court. I’m sorry it may sound a bit rude but status and dress is everything here so if you don’t want to be written off as some poor person from the provinces you have to play the game. In some ways I was once like you, when my husband moved us here for the trading advantages I stuck out like a sore thumb. We didn’t wear much at home either so that and my skin colour made me so visible. You’ve heard the rule “When in Kyrotome, well it applies everywhere throughout the Great and Glorious Empire but nowhere more than in Kyrotome; fit in or perish”.

“I’m sorry but empire, I thought the dragons didn’t permit wars”.

“They don’t, this is an empire of trade, the Emperor rules by controlling the ability to trade with Kyrotome. No small town can afford not to trade with us. That’s why my husband moved here from home. Here is where the money is”.

Well the difference from the Nai S couldn’t be any bigger.

“You keep thinking of the Nai S but surely you come from somewhere else, so you have your own culture”.

“Yes but it’s a long way away and very very different”.

“Where”.

“I come from a place called Westros, it’s about six thousand mile East of the Easternmost parts of the Nai S lands”.

“You’re joking with me”.

“You know I’m not, you know it’s virtually impossible to lie while dreamspeaking”. I thought about home, about Winterfell”.

“Good gods. Oh wait ‘til I get you into court circles, we haven’t had anything as interesting as you to discuss for years”.

“I’m afraid I’m not a court circle sort of person, I’m a traveller, I enjoy finding new cultures, that’s why I came here, but I’m not the sort of person to sit with you and talk to people for long. I’ve seen how busy the docks are I suspect we can’t just moor up and stay here”.

“No your ship will need to sail within a day or two, but that doesn’t mean you have to go, you can stay at my house”.

“As I said I’m a sailor first”.

“Please, court life is so very boring. I have to do it to as part of my husband’s business; keeping in with the right people and so on, but normally it’s excruciatingly tedious for all of us because we have so little to talk about”.

I could imagine; “I’m afraid that’s exactly why I want to be away on my ship”.

“But then you’ll not have learned much about Kyrotome. You could live here a year and not have seen everything there is to see. I guarantee you if you come to court once a week I’ll find you things to do the other six days. When you get bored of the things you’re doing you can sail away”.

Well what was there to lose at this point, “Go on then, but I reserve the right to go back to my ship any time I like”.

“Agreed, it will be challenge to keep you interested and here. So first we really must get you some other clothing. You presumably don’t know that here we wear white in mourning for the dead”.

I had noticed everyone appeared to wear coloured clothing. So my shirt and open kneed breeches in sun bleached sailcloth must look really odd. “No; so yes I need to get new clothes but I can’t wear what you’ve got on”.

“Well if you come to court you’ll have to, but just to go round the city you can wear things a lot simpler. Lucky you, I’m stuck in this sort of thing for the rest of my life; unless my husband ruins the company, which isn’t likely. Now we need to go back to my house to get started”.

I left Stanson a message at the shop, it sold exotic perfumes, we were in the upmarket shopping area and got carefully into the litter to be carried back to Murasaski’s house and the start of my exploration of the most complicated and exciting city in the known world.


	30. We split up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And you didn't even realise we were a couple. No reunion sex either.

I got back from the docks to find our rooms empty. The shopkeeper below came out and found me with the key and the message that Arya had gone with a court lady; at least I think that’s what he said. No one much seemed to cook at home; there were no facilities in the building so we all found the nearest tavern. The food was good so it was well after dusk before we got home, still no Arya. I was starting to get worried, had she been taken to court and I’d misunderstood. The shop was locked up; I later learned they lived immediately above us, but that was later, Piot and I were discussing splitting the crew up into search parties of three and recognising we hadn’t chance of finding her when a huge litter carried by eight men stopped in the street below and someone jumped down then looked up and waved at us. It was her, wearing some very fancy clothing but clearly Arya.

I was late back and they’d be worried, I’d lost track of time shopping with Murasaki. Well I say shopping, they came to her ‘house’ otherwise small palace and we picked what we liked or orders were placed for delivery tomorrow. I went up to the apartment “Evening all, really sorry about being this late, I lost track of time. Is everything else alright”.

“Everything’s fine now you’re back, because yes we were starting to worry. We do however need to talk, because we’ve had a busy day on the docks and you need to make some decisions”.

“Do we have a problem and do I need to get Needle out to resolve it”.

“Sort of yes and definitely no. We can’t just sit around in Kyrotome harbour, it’s too busy, the dockside fees are high and they just won’t let an idle boat get in the way. We’ve also had three offers of work already so the Petrel is going to sea tomorrow the big questions are how far and am I on it.”

Oh, “How can you not be on it”.

“Easy, Piot’s perfectly capable of running the ship, he’s every bit as qualified as me and he’s far better at speaking Trader. In practice it’s him that’s negotiating our cargos anyway”.

“Do you want to go”.

“No I want to stay here and keep an eye on you, even if it is only to see you’ve come home every night”.

“Won’t you get bored”.

“Let me worry about that, I’d rather be bored than worried and you may not want to hear this but if I leave you here alone I’ll worry”.

That was nice to know but also constraining, did I want to be responsible for how he lived his life because he wouldn’t be separated from me. “If you want to you stay, I assume you’ll recruit extra hands easily enough”.

That was a relief. I’d discussed this with Piot and Haerd and we’d a three sided plan to change her mind if she’d said no. “Yes the dockside’s teeming with men looking for work, we’ll get a couple of young lads, get the average age of crew below sixty. The next question is do you think you’ll be here a while, because Piot has a business scheme that means going all the way back to the Nais S, maybe not Limani but the Western end of the Sunrise Islands. Remember those nuts we shipped to Hokomuni”.

“Yes”.

“Well he likes them so he kept a barrel in the hold. He was eating a few and offered them to one of the traders. The trader thinks they’d sell here, basically anything will sell here, so the real point is no one else has thought to ship them this far. It sounds good but if he goes we’re going to be here for months not weeks”.

“I don’t think that will be a problem. We actually spent months with the Nai S and I’m sure there’s a lot more to see and do here. This city really has got everyone and everything”. I notice Piot was looking happy. The skipper was right he was good at Trader so why not. I was more worried about how I’d cope when Stanson got tired of listening to me talk about things I’d done while he struggled with his limited language skills.

“All settled then, so tell me about your day”.

And I did.


	31. Life is full of new experiences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of them involve visiting the sex shop, which also helps me with my moonbleeds.

If you come from Kyrotome a lot of this chapter might be a bit uninteresting, if you don’t then I’m pretty sure there’ll be something about the place that will make it worthwhile. The first thing it taught both of us was that we were a pair of country bumpkins or as they put it ‘provincials’, which is the ultimate insult round here. By comparison everything they do is ‘civilised’ at least in their eyes. The list of things they do in Kyrotome that they do nowhere else is long. I would have loved to bring some of the ‘Oh we’re from King’s Landing’ types who sneered at Winterfell here. So in no particular order: -

Plumbing, clean water in and waste out by channel above ground for the first and by tunnel underground for the second. Funnily the privies were just the same as in Limani; experience was to teach me this was the norm throughout virtually all the Dragon lands

Pieces of paper instead of coins, you could use coins but the paper was so much easier to carry. You leave your coins at a bank and they give you some paper and dock it off the amount you own. Then you go back a couple of weeks later and get some more paper if you need to or if you’ve been trading and made a profit you take some in and they put some more coins in your strongbox. Marcus didn’t entirely trust this system so a good bit of our gold was still on the Petrel but all the silver and a few gold coins were ‘deposited’.

Paper, the stuff the coin replacements are made from is some sort of secret recipe known only to the Imperial Treasury so you can’t just go and make your own money.

Free food, it’s not much, grain and basic vegetables, lots of onions, but no one will ever starve.

Central heating, round the back of the buildings are fire pits connected to flues that go through the walls. In winter when it gets a bit colder, they have nothing like a real Winterfell winter here, the shopkeeper collect some money from all the tenants and sets a fire going, the heat rises up inside the walls and heats all the rooms. Obviously we get the most heat but even at the top of the block you can feel the walls are warm.

Public baths, apartments and houses also have their own smaller versions; palaces have their own full size ones. You go in, strip off, they heat you up to make you sweat; and I mean heat, don’t go in feeling slightly hung over, and then rub you down to get you clean; then you plunge in a cold pool before loitering an a warm bath like the Nais S have. On the side you can be plucked or shaved to get rid of body hair. They aren’t keen on body hair round here, it’s the mark of a provincial, the ultimate insult. Oh and public privies, like the ones in the apartments; pissing in the street is again very provincial.

Games and races. The emperor organises these to keep everyone happy, there’s everything from tumblers and jugglers and dancers to fights to the death, Marcus won’t go to those he says that isn’t his definition of civilised. I went a few times but I didn’t think the standard was actually that high. More on that subject later. Then there’s the real big one the chariot races, a man in a very small two wheel cart behind four horses. They race in a massive building, capacity a hundred and twenty thousand people, yes you read that right. Areas of town and groups support different teams, racing in different colours, fights can break out between supporters in the streets after races. It’s meant to be a race but some drivers clearly play dirty. We both enjoyed this.

Theatres, places to go and watch actors telling stories like the mummers players, but in buildings with painted wood pieces to make it look like you’re on a ship or in a palace or on a battlefield, comedies tragedies, love stories, some fantastical magical tales others real day to day things; but no criticism of the Emperor. There’s no equivalent of the Fool, or if there is he’s kept well out of sight.

Of course there’s all the usual things, taverns, brothels, shops selling everything you can imagine and some things you can’t, one of two of which I’ll mention later.

Not that the place is perfect, despite a force of armed men who patrol the streets, crime is not uncommon in the poorer areas. Rich folk hire their own protection when necessary. The crowding makes passing round diseases quite easy and with every nation in the world shipping into the harbour, something novel and lethal turns up every few years. They have plenty of apothecaries with lots of herbs and things, but it’s not the healthiest place to live. Finally despite the liquid stone stuff fires are fairly common, whole chunks of the city burn down periodically, but the place is permanently being rebuilt to account for the new arrivals so they just rebuild it and carry on.

Finally they have slavery, apparently most of the Dragon lands do. In Kyrotome the easiest way to become a slave is to go bankrupt, when you become the property of your biggest business creditor; but it seems to be accepted that you can work your way back out of it. The other way is to arrive in the docks, or at a city gate without a job or any money; and arrive they do, hundreds every day, volunteering to become slaves, working to buy themselves out, buying their own slaves. It seemed crazy to us but it seems to work.

How did this impact us, well first we had to get properly clothed to fit in, both the local style and our social standing. Setting our visits to court aside, more of which later, we were considered respectable trades people, expected to have a different set of clothes for each day of the week, change them when you’ve been to the baths, where the dirty ones will be laundered and given back to you the day after. So we went shopping, colours for men are all grey, dark blue or black, with white or light grey patterns woven into them, the more intricate the patterns the greater the cost. For women there are four seasonal colour schemes, Spring is green and pink, summer green and blue, autumn red and yellow and winter red and blue. Shades vary younger women typically wearing paler colours, older people darker.

So you’ve selected your colour combination, what are you actually getting. Men wear a loincloth and large baggy breeches that tie round the waist and at the knee, below them the one toe socks that let you wear sandals. Above the waist an undershirt, and a jacket, both with pretty large elbow length sleeves and overlapping fronts held together with a belt, no buttons, no ties except to hold your trousers up. Women wear socks and sandals just like the men but above that knee length, long sleeved wrap round garments held together with a wide belt. The higher you go up the social scale the more layers a woman wears up to the six worn at court; also the length of the clothing gets longer; basically if you need to work it’s knee length, if you don’t it’s down to the ground, if you do and you don’t it can be half way or you own some short, some long. Hats, because it rains quite a bit due to the prevailing westerly winds of the Inland Sea are ubiquitously an inverted cone made of straw and waxed. I mentioned crime happens, Needle was too obvious, but my dagger went into my waist band quite nicely so while Stanson and I were out together I could protect him.

Now you’re asking yourself about my liking for male clothing. I didn’t bother, I did however stick to knee length, which was a bit common of me. Murasaki found it slightly embarrassing being out with me, because I didn’t walk behind her like a servant but for her to associate with someone so patently lower class was, yes you guessed it; terribly provincial.

You’ve noticed I haven’t mentioned ladies underwear. That’s because they don’t wear any, no corsets no smallclothes; the wind circulates freely, which I’d got used to with the Nai S and honestly I think is far cleaner than sweaty small clothes wrapped round you. So what happens when you bleed. Stanson, Haerd and Piot had made a point of keeping my weight up on the trips from Megalo Limani; I wasn’t quite made to strip and be examined, but they were obviously determined to keep me fed. When I questioned the point of this Stanson said they didn’t think it was good for my health to be too underweight, a girl my age should bleed and anything less was unhealthy. When I bridled at this interference Piot said if it made me feel any better he was just going along with it because he preferred my perky boobs. I had to hit him for that but not too hard. 

So that time was heading round and I asked Murasaki what went on.

“Well what would you normally do”.

“I have rags I tie round my waist that go between my legs, then I wash them out, but I haven’t seen any women handing them over at the baths so I’m assuming that’s terribly provincial and you have some other miracle method”.

“Too right we do, and not just in the provinces; Ewe! I can’t imagine doing what you describe, icky”.

“So”.

“Come on, we can get you something for fun while we’re there as well”.

She levered herself upright in her full court costume, got her raised clogs on and we went out into the street and into the Dildo shop. “In here”.

“Of course, the signs really a bit misleading, they sell anything you might want to put inside your Froufrou”.

Frou frou, here was a woman who would a call a spade a horticultural sedimentary material moving tool because anything else was too provincial. Mind you I have to admit I didn’t exactly have precise terms for all the bits in my crotch myself. So in we went; straight to the point, no, we had to stop at the dildo’s first.

“Oh that’s tempting, with a hooked ending; three prongs something for everywhere”.

That threw me, it took me a while to work out what she meant. I’d always wondered what sort of woman bought these things and having met her pals at court I was beginning to get the idea. “I know I’m very naive on this subject but what’s that one for”. Two back to back male members with a larger mound between them, slanted at about thirty degree to each other.

“No you wouldn’t want one those, they’re for completely the wrong sort of woman”.

Now if there’s one thing you don’t tell me it’s what I don’t want or mustn’t do. “No; I’m interested, how does that one work”. She went very quiet and muttered something “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that”. The girls selling them seemed to think now as the time to step in. One lead Murasaki to the other side of the shop to look at something that she was ‘sure to like’; while the other picked the double one up and lead me behind a curtain at the back of the room. There was a bed, virtually double width, she got onto it and sat with one leg straight and the other one crooked and then motioned me to join her, while sliding one cock into herself. Ah yes that made sense, for two girls, obvious really, the mound in the middle for them both to grind against. “Yes, understand, no thank you” her face fell, I wasn’t sure whether she was upset at losing a sale or she actually fancied the idea of a bit of mid-morning activity.

While I was behind the curtain seemed a good time to get to the real purpose of the visit, now was my trader up to this; “Girl bleed month”, how the hells did you say ‘mop it up’ in trader. It didn’t seem I needed to; she nodded and went out into the shop and came back within minutes with a handful of small, cup shaped devices. I’d played cup and ball with these as a child, except there was no string and no ball. She stood with one leg cocked on the bed and said “Copy” so I did. Gently she put her fingers between my legs and found the sheath the cock went into, then she slid one of the cups into me, stepped back and said “Jump”. I must have looked completely confused because she jigged up and down a bit and repeated “Jump”, so ‘When in Kyrotome…’ I jumped, it felt loose and as I landed the stick end poked back out a bit, I could feel it touching my thigh. “Leg up” I complied, the first one came out and a second one went in, that was definitely larger I felt just a little bit stretched. “Jump”, I jumped nothing seemed to move. We both nodded at each other. “Leg up”, I complied, she slid her finger in alongside it, that felt quite full, pressurised. Then she hooked her finger and flipped the device out. “That way, not just pull”; the right way to remove it obviously. “Yes understand”.

We went back in to the shop Murasaki was clutching a fancy paper wrapped box, obviously her latest purchase. She saw the devices in the assistant’s hands.

“Good you got what you needed, I’m sorry I got distracted, did you buy the other thing”.

“No when I realised how to use it there’s no point, that’s not my idea of enjoyment”.

“You really didn’t know what it was for”.

“No”.

“Oh you little innocent”.

I didn’t think that term had applied to me for years but it wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have now so I let it pass by. 


	32. Sometimes it's good to disagree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as long as I get my way in the end, more plot I'm afraid.

“No, no , no, no NO! have I made myself clear”

I had to learn to make it more obvious when I was joking. I’d suggested I could learn to be a chariot driver to lighten the mood. The effect had not been what I wanted. “Skipper I wasn’t being serious, relax”.

Shit I’d blown that one then, a bit of humour and I’d come over all protective parent, something I was desperately trying to avoid because I knew she wouldn’t take it. “I’m sorry but sometimes you frighten me and that was one of them”.

That was an idea I hadn’t liked the first time he’d admitted it and it wasn’t any more appealing now. The question was did I pursue the matter now or not. Maybe if I approached it from the side. “What can I do to stop you having to worry”.

“You can’t. Please don’t take this the wrong way but would you have expected your parents to ever stop worrying about you”.

“No”.

“Well then whether you think it’s arrogant of me or wrong of me you’d better get used to the idea that I’ll always be the same”.

“Then you need to get used to the idea that I’m going to frighten you more and more as I get older and there’s nothing you can do about it”.

“And I will slowly, but along the way there will still be times when I lose my rag with you because I think you’re taking unnecessary risks, or at least claiming you’re going to. Now this is getting us anywhere so can we change the subject”.

“In just a minute, I think these things are better said now. It matters a lot to me that you care, even if I feel it’s misplaced. It’s like you walking me around when I’m the one carrying the knife and I’m the one who knows how to use it. It’s not the practical side it’s the emotional one”. Woa where had that come from.

“That’s good of you to say”. It wasn’t just good it was bloody amazing, that was more emotional involvement than I’d seen from her before. I had to shut up or I’d something more and spoil what I had achieved.

He went very quiet. I realised now was the time to change the subject. “Right now I have something else to say that is serious, that you’re not going to like for other reasons. We have to go to court together. It’s a formal presentation. I’ve been around the place too long and not been officially presented and I can’t be presented on my own, my husband father, protector, whatever has to be there to do the presenting and that’s you. I’m no happier with the ‘men in charge’ ideas that this projects than you are at the idea of wearing fancy clothes and a funny hat, but it’s do it or leave town and Piot isn’t back yet. So unless you want to book passage on someone else’s ship it’s dress up time. To put the only positive spin on it I can, all sorts of trading people will be there, after the formal presentation there’ll be nibbles and chatter and the opportunity to meet prospective business partners”.

That didn’t seem to me to be a positive spin. I’d already had several people ask me when the Petrel would be back, they were in a queue. Piot could be back at sea within forty-eight hours of arriving if we wanted to. Kyrotome just had an insatiable appetite for trade goods. I could run ten ships and still not have too many. That thought stuck in my mind, why not.

He’d gone very quiet. “You’re thinking skipper”.

“I am, there’s a price for attendance at court and it’s you that’s going to pay”.

“Details then”.

“We’re going to set up in business here ‘Stark Trading Enterprises’ or something like it. You’re going to buy more ships, new or very good second hand ones and we’re going to do it properly and make money, but we’re also going to use one ship for you and I to carry on exploring; call it ‘market expansion assessment’. Piot can actually run the business, he’s a clever bloke, but he’s like me getting too old for serious sailing. We’ll find local crews no problem”.

“You switched from we to you there for a reason”.

“Yes, the price is we’ll need a good bit of your gold, maybe even that gem stone to buy the ships”.

“That’s not really a major price, what else can I do with it”.

The thought ‘buy a small city’ crossed my mind but I stuck to my plan. “That would be up to you, it is your money”.

“Well that’s settled then on one other condition”.

“Which is”.

“I get to learn to run the business. As you said you and Piot aren’t in the first flush of youth. One day I’m going to be on my own and by then I need to know what I’m doing and I need to be able to talk to my skippers from a position of knowledge so you have to let me work my way up to master”.

“Well that’s a tall order in possibly no more than five or ten years, you’d better be a quick learner or I’d better hang on to life a bit longer than average”.

“Well I’ll do my best at the first and I’m sure you’re already motivated to do the second”.

“Deal then, so go on what do I need to know about this court thing”.


	33. I get these stabbing sensations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People die, it had to happen eventually, using the privvy may also be involved.

“There that didn’t really hurt”, we’d been presented, meaningless platitudes from both sides, now it was nibbles and drinks and we could leave. Personally I thought Stanson looked magnificent. Male court costume differed only from everyday wear in that everything was heavier cloth and showier patterns and the knee breeches became trousers that went right to the ground and the jacket had an additional layer that had no sleeves and huge winged shoulders and finally a silly pillbox hat held on with strings tied in a bow. So actually quite a lot. In complete defiance of convention he’d refused to shave his beard, which made him look like the only man amongst a bunch of boys.

I felt like, well I don’t know what I did feel like but it wasn’t how I wanted to feel. Arya looked absolutely stunning. The last piece of court convention Murasaki avoided because of her skin colour was that the women painted their faces and necks white, except for two points up the back of their necks. I don’t know why but it just seemed to suit her so well, she slid across the floor as though on wheels, she looked so poised despite the massively impractical clothing. I knew I loved her as a person, but seeing her I realised I also loved her as a young and very beautiful woman; which was hard because I was quite sure, with her lack of desire for children, that that love would never be consummated. Still best face forward, now was not the time for anything but social niceties. “I’m fine, as you say let’s nibble and then go”. I could see her friend Murasaki behind her “That’s your pal behind you waving isn’t it”.

I turned round, yes that was Murasaki, you couldn’t miss her in a sea of painted white faces. We headed her way; she was as usual gushing and exaggerating.

“You both look magnificent, now come over here and let me introduce M’lord Stanson to all my friends”.

She virtually dragged Stanson over to the circle of her gossiping cronies. That sounds a bit nasty, they were perfectly decent people, but it was just they had nothing to do with their lives but tattle about each other. I drifted after her, nod and sidestep a couple of men I’d realised wanted to try and ingratiate themselves with a view to marriage and hang around the edge of her group while they all fussed over Stanson.

Then I realised something was happening, men in ordinary clothing were in the room, the emperor was standing up and they were standing round him with drawn weapons. I got my hand into the ceremonial sash and got a grip on my knife, then slid next to Stanson. I couldn’t understand how, but most people didn’t seem to have noticed.

Arya’s voice hissed in my ear.

“Something’s happening, something potentially violent, just keep talking but if I tell you to do something don’t ask why”.

I did as I was told, but also swung my eyes as far as possible. I’d ducked enough chairs and occasionally swords in taverns to want to know who was doing what.

The men with swords were putting them away, obviously whatever they expected to happen hadn’t, but people were finally coming out of their cocoons of social chit chat and realising they were there. Then the Emperor started to speak.

“My friends, it appears there is some civil disturbance around the palace gates. In the circumstances I think it is unwise for people to leave, so you are all invited to stay overnight. The chamberlains will arrange the additional sleeping arrangements”.

Civil disturbance, no had mentioned the likelihood of civil disturbance in my time at the palace. Still everything seemed quiet enough in the room.

“M’lord Stanson, Arya, we should go to my husband’s quarters. There’s room for you both to sleep there and if you’re with me they won’t try and push other people in on me I don’t know”.

She hustled us out of the room, other people appeared to be spreading out in a similar manner. We moved to her private quarters, a suit of six rooms and she arranged us all, one room for her, one for Stanson, one for me, one each for her two servants. She seemed quite concerned that someone would appear with an additional guest and insist they could sleep in it but no one came. We settled down, the maids brought more food, it went dark, everyone chattered like it was nothing special, but I wanted to know what was going on. “Murasaki, what did he mean civil disturbance”. She stopped and glared at me, I held her gaze.

“The Imperial crown is not routinely handed down from father to son, in fact it’s rarely handed at all it’s usually taken, by a business rival”.

“And if it’s taken what happens to the people like us”.

“Oh nothing much unless we’ve really got on the wrong side of the new Emperor, mostly we’ll just carry on. One or two of us might be asked to leave, but that would be the worst for virtually anyone. There’ll be no mass bloodletting, that would upset business too much. I don’t want to be rude but you two are at no risk you’re far too unimportant”.

“In these circumstances the value of your honesty far outweighs any possible insult” Gods I was starting to talk like them.

The evening dragged on, no one seemed keen to go to bed but eventually Murasaki gave a theatrical yawn and looked at Arya and I.

“I think I’ll retire, now you two please remember to stay in your separate rooms, this is no time for inappropriate behaviour”.

I looked at Arya and grinned, she obviously hadn’t been told about our normal shipboard arrangements. Anyway we were free, after a fashion, so I took myself into my room, got out of all the clothing and surprisingly had little trouble sleeping.

One of the maids insisted on helping me undress, then I was left by myself. I wasn’t terribly sleepy, I don’t know why. I jiffled and turned for quite a while then finally drifted into a fitful sleep, to dreams of wolves howling in the night, dreams not a warg trip; Nymeria was nowhere in my mind.

I woke sometime in the middle of the night with a full bladder. Where the hells were the privies near here, I thought down a corridor on the left. I wrapped my innermost jacket round me, tied my sash and slipped my knife into it, then hitched the skirts up and tucked the ends into the belt so my lower legs were free. It wasn’t hard to get out of the quarters into the main corridor, left and down the wall, yes here was the door, job done I came back out and set off back to our quarters.

As I left the room there was a noise, the running water always made a noise but this was different. Two people were moving around in the room, they had to have come up the drains. I didn’t see how anyone doing that could be anything but an assassin. They were coming out the door, it wasn’t difficult to take the first one and kill him before his partner even realised I was there, the second one was quick though, my first stab missed as he twisted away from me. He threw the corpse at me, hit me and knocked me off balance, then he came at me, but he’d not realised I was a left hander, his strike actually ran his arm onto my blade. I felt it go in and twisted to make the effect worse that really hurt and he part screamed part cursed. The noise carried in the silence of the night, I pulled my blade free and heard running footsteps. So did he and they were behind him, his obvious route out was over me. His eyes were on mine so he probably thought a foot sweep would catch me out, but he changed his balance a fraction too soon and I danced back out of range, lights and three men carrying swords came round the corner. He was desperate, he threw himself at me trying to strike, and knock me aside at the same time, I sidestepped again and the first man behind him struck. A short sword blade appeared in front of me through his chest and he was down gurgling briefly before expiring on the floor. More people started to appear from various directions. The amount of noise increased dramatically, I knelt down and wiped my blade on the first man’s coat and peeled off the mask he was wearing. I wasn’t going to know who he was but I still wanted to see who I’d killed. It had been a while, nearly a year since I’d last ended someone’s life. Did it feel any different, no it didn’t, it was a job that needed doing and I’d done it, but something in me said it was different because it would matter to Stanson. He would feel it had happened on his watch and it would upset him and that I realised would upset me. I stood up put my knife in my belt and walked away from the people shouting and clamouring around the guards who were removing the bodies. 

I awoke hearing people shouting. I got up as fast as I could and went to Arya’s room, she wasn’t there. I was about to run out in to the corridor when I stopped, ‘Trust her’. So I sat down at the entrance to Murasaki’s quarters and waited. The others got up and came and joined me. After a few minute’s things went quiet. The tide of people had stopped moving to our left and was largely stationary. It would start to ebb in a minute, funny to compare a mob to the sea but they moved in the same way. A few started to turn; then she came back, slipping through them and into our area. Her face said she knew more than they did.

I got back to our quarters and saw Stanson sitting by the door. His face was quite passive at rest almost, then he saw me and a big relieved smile broke it. I went to him, got quite close so I had to look up into his face, but it meant I could speak quietly “I think I may have let you down”.

“How”

“I just killed one man and was instrumental in getting a second man killed”.

“Did they attack you”

“No”.

“Then I have to ask why”.

“You don’t climb up the waste pipe of the privy wearing black at this time of night and claim you were just clearing a blockage”.

“They were below you when you were sat there”.

“Not right below, probably six or ten feet back down the waste pipe, but they came out too fast afterwards and I could hear them”.

“You could have just shouted ‘Guards, guards’”.

“Not my style I’m afraid and besides then they’d have run, I couldn’t tell where, I couldn’t tell who they might meet; maybe so old man wandering defenceless down the corridor”.

“You have a point, a good point so would you mind escorting the old man”. That seemed to break the ice she’d been looking far too serious. I noticed the tide of watchers had ebbed the corridor was effectively empty although light were clearly visible to our left.

“Come on then, and remember in court even men are expected to sit down, no standing three feet back and spraying it around”. I went out the door back the way I’d just come.

We walked down the corridor to the privy. As we got there there were armed men stood looking at two bodies on the ground. Arya stepped over them as if they were just lumps of wood; I went round them. It was obvious one had been stabbed in the chest with a sword, the other had no mark on him but a large pool of blood suggested wherever the knife had gone in it had hit something critical. She kept going into the privy and sat down herself, I took the next space.

“I’d don’t need to do anything but it looks odd if I stand there glaring at you, get up and go when you’re ready”.

So I did as I was told, but as we came out of the door one of the soldiers stopped us.

“Hey You”.

“Pardon”.

“Not you old man, the woman”.

He was pointing at Arya whose eyes had taken on a nasty focus. “The young woman is called Arya Stark. She can speak for herself”.

“You killed him”

He toed the body for emphasis.

“Yes I killed him”

“You have a weapon”

She showed him the knife; he moved to take it from her, she stepped quickly backwards “No!”

He looked at her, then at me; did he think I was going to take it from her, or tell her to give it him. “It’s her knife, but you’re safe, she selects who she kills”. He looked sceptical but let it ride.

“Come with me”

“I’m with Murasaki” he was doing his best to talk to Stanson which was irritating, that got his attention back on me.

“Then stay with Murasaki”

****

We both nodded and walked back the way we’d come. We got back to Murasaki’s quarter’s, they all appeared to have gone to bed. I was tired, but as I sat down she pointedly sat down opposite me.

“I’m sorry”.

“What for”.

“I’m not sure; I want to say for letting you down, but I know you’ll say I didn’t”.

“You didn’t; you killed someone who was bent on murder, that’s not letting me down”.

“But it’s not being the sort of person you want me to be”.

“We can’t all be the person we want to be all the time. Sometime we aren’t because we don’t do what we should, sometimes others force it on us. I consider you were forced. I also don’t want you to be a particular sport of person for me; I want you to be that sort of person for you, because that’s the sort of person, you want you to be”. There was a pause, she was clearly thinking about that. I wasn’t sure I’d quite said what I’d mean but it was the middle of the might and I was tired.

“Then I think you’re succeeding because there’s one bit of me going, I did nothing wrong, in fact I did plenty right and another part going, I just wish it hadn’t happened to me. Why did I need a piss at just the wrong time”.

“You know the answer to the last part, but yes I do think it’s good that for all your desire to be excited, that no longer includes killing people so I’m actually very pleased by that. Now can I go to bed before I literally fall asleep”.

When I didn’t answer he got up and went. I didn’t; I sat there for a long time. When I’d got on his boat I thought I knew who I was. It might not have been a very positive image but it was a clear image, it was me; now I wasn’t sure who me was anymore and that was unsettling”.


	34. I can’t help being provincial I’m from the bloody provinces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst word is in the title

We got up in the morning and there was Hell to pay. Murasaki appeared at what must be for the court crack of dawn, or to us mid-morning. She grabbed hold of my hand.

“I’ve just been with the Emperor, he seems to think that you went around killing people last night”.

“I killed one potential assassin, the guards killed the other”.

“But you’re an apprentice court lady, you can’t do that. You shouldn’t even be carrying a knife. You could have attacked him with it.”

“Why would I do that”.

“He doesn’t need a reason he just doesn’t have people round him with weapons. Unless you hand the knife over, publically, your days at court are done”.

“Murasaki, I didn’t ask to become an apprentice here, you’ve been very kind to me but this isn’t my life, nor do I want it to be, so to be honest it’s a good thing; he can throw me out rather than me having to leave”.

“How can you want to leave, this is court, the peak of civilisation”.

“Well maybe it’s because I’m not really civilised. Remember I don’t just come from the provinces; I come from outside the provinces. I also have some very good friends among the Nai S, who it’s obvious that most people here consider to be no better than animals. Thank you again for all your help, and come and see me any time you like, but please tell the Emperor” I paused; how to phrase it, yes “I apologise profoundly for my poor provincial habits, but fear I cannot correct them so I must regrettably withdraw from his service to avoid compromising the civilised standards of the court”.

“Well I must say I’m deeply disappointed, but at least that is a polite disengagement. I shall inform him immediately. I’m afraid I do have to ask you to leave as soon as you’re dressed. Please don’t leave in court clothing. I’ll have that sent on to you in case you ever change your mind”.

“That’s perfectly alright, and as I said please feel welcome at our apartment any time you wish”. She turned and headed off to announce my withdrawal, and I turned to Stanson “We’re out of here, I’ve just resigned from a job I didn’t know I’d even been given; certainly one I didn’t apply for; so put some ordinary clothing on and let’s go”.

“So no more multiple robes and silly hats”.

“Never again”.

“That’s a relief, on the way home we can go by the shipyard; I’ve something I want to show you”.


	35. One Goodbye, lots of Hellos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also the mildest bit of sexual harassment you'll ever read.

The thing Stanson wanted to show me was a two masted ship, called a topsail schooner that he was proposing to have built as our first new ship. This would be Piot’s vessel for the serious trading and we would keep the Petrel for our exploration. It was going to cost about a half of our gold though, Kyrotome prices were higher than anywhere else, but he felt we also getting better quality.

“I’ve seen ships coming in to port built in other places, you can spot them and they’re just not as fine lines as the ones built here”.

“You’re the expert on this, so get what you want”.

I had approval to get a new ship and a very good ship, except I was probably never going to sail her, that would be Piot’s privilege. Still given the effort it had taken me to get to the point of owning the Petrel even if the ship was also technically Arya’s I felt like I was going up in the world. I didn’t want court and all it entailed, but I wasn’t averse to being a part of a small trading company rather than just a one ship merchant master. “Fine, I’m also going to need to spend some time at the dockyard while she’s being built, both to keep an eye on things and to learn more about this sort of vessel.

“Do what you want, I know enough about this place to find my own way round and keep myself occupied. There is one other thing”.

“Yes”.

“The aftercastle”.

“They don’t really have an aftercastle like the Petrel, but I assume you mean the skipper’s quarters”.

“Yes; I want it built with two separate sleeping areas and a central shared area and both sleeping areas get their own privy. That’s not just so we can use her in a civilised manner, if we wanted to, if Piot were to get a female passenger she would have privacy. You got away with a lot with me no other woman would stand for. Just imagine you were taking Muraski somewhere”.

“Fair enough it will cost a bit of space in the hold but it makes sense. You move a few people on enough trips for it to be worthwhile”.

So Stanson went to the shipyard and came back with progress reports and details of clever things they had on ships we didn’t, like a wheel connected to ropes connected to the tiller that made it easier to steer the ship. I’d always struggled with the tiller bar in anything but light winds, but with this I could probably cope in anything other than a major storm.

Next thing that happened was that the Petrel came home. They all came off the dock to the apartment without any warning; suddenly there were a bunch of people coming through the door. My friends were home and I realised I’d missed them so they all got a hug as they came thought the door; which was going fine until I realised I was hugging a young man whose hands were sliding down towards my bum; I disengaged, he looked disappointed, ”And who do we have here”. It was Piot who answered.

“These are the new lads, Fumi you’ve”

He coughed, I glared at him, he’d seen what Fumio had been doing.

“Met him. The other two are Mutako and Isobe”.

I shook hands with all three while Piot kept talking.

“This is one of the heads of Stark shipping, so my boss. So you all treat her as such, because if you don’t and you’re lucky I’ll chuck you out, if your lucks out she’ll have taken your balls off with a sharp knife first”.

Mutako and Isobe looked suitably impressed and intimidated, Fumio’s expression was very different, I knew that look I’d used it myself, he saw me as a challenge. Well that was his problem. We went out to eat, he deliberately sat opposite me, so I took my knife out of my sash and carefully sliced every piece of food on my plate in half. He was watching, which was what I intended, but I still suspected his balls were shouting louder than his common sense inside his head.

Piot had some good news and some bad. We’d made a handsome profit running a collection of what I could best describe as novelty goods to the Nai S. Small art works, statues and the like, decorative items for house doors. No one really made them locally and no one here thought they were civilised enough to be interested. Then the run home had been full of nuts, which were already pre sold to a merchant so although he hadn’t collected we knew what we’d made and handsome profit.

The bad news was that the Petrel was reaching the end of her days. They’d hit one day’s really bad weather and things had started to crack in the hull that showed she was an old boat, whose timbers were beginning to feel the strain.

I could tell Stanson was upset when Piot said the Petrel wasn’t up to another long voyage or big storm. He’d had her a long time; she was his history as a ship owner. “Would she manage for short trips in fair weather, say just across the passage”. There were four towns on the far side of the entrance to the Inland Sea, they all traded with Kyrotome on a daily basis.

“Oh she’d be fine for that sort of thing, but that means either we take the new vessel or you’re not going exploring”.

“What about a third ship, just a single mast, same tonnage as the Petrel but slightly slimmer and longer. We can take that exploring, Piot can work the big boat to Limani and back; that seems to be making good money and someone else, Elog, how do you like the idea of short runs; can work the Petrel locally”. 

It was clear to me who was running this company, but it was her money and she was right it was a sound plan so why not. I looked at Elog, he was nodding “Sounds like we have a plan boss”. That was that then, Elog turned the Petrel round and started running food into Kyromtome and manufactured items back out. We even got a contract to shift a load of ‘feminine devices’ for Dodeshi. Apparently despite what Murasaki had said to me, moon cups were a relatively new thing even in Kyrotome, but since it was a reusable device he need to expand his market to keep sales up.

It was strange I still felt like I’d lost the Petrel and I as pretty sure Stanson did too, but one of the advantages of a quick turnaround for the Petrel was that Fumi was back at sea before he had time to start making clever plans to get between my legs. He seemed a good lad and Piot said he was by far the cleverest of the three so I didn’t want his career or anything else prematurely cut short. The expansion in the business meant more recruits, more new faces and the loss of some old ones as they took the opportunity to stay ashore. We bought a house in Tadema just across the passage and it became a mixture of crew base for the Petrel and retirement home for some of the older lads, who would do a trip every three or four just to say they were still sailing. The local crew we hired mostly had their own rooms, but steadily we took over the upper floors and eventually bought the whole building so there was always somewhere for a wandering Stark mariner to lay his weary head.

As a result the apartment fast became just the skipper, me and Haerd; plus Piot or Elog when they were in port. After a while I realised I was starting to get domesticated, arranging furniture and ornaments and so on. My excuse was the main room was also our business office so it needed to impress clients, but even I realised that that was only half the story.

While Arya got domesticated I spent a lot of time at the shipyard. We got the two master launched, Piot christened her the Albatross and off he went taking Fumi with him. The lad had realised we were keeping him away from Arya, but he just seemed to take it as part of the challenge; he even told me ‘One day she’ll be mine”; which amused me because even if he and Arya got together the idea he’d ever own her was preposterous, the best he might achieve was long term visiting rights. Then we got to work on what Arya wanted to call the Petrel II. I didn’t; the old Petrel was still sailing, I didn’t like the way it suggested a replacement; I felt it was bad luck so I’m afraid I turned into my wife and nagged her until she gave in and it became the Kittiwake.

While Marcus was taking up a month or two ‘persuading’ me about the ships name I spent time in the apartment. Sometimes I almost turned into a lady of leisure, although needlework still meant practicing with my sword. I hired a retired gladiator from the Colosseum to practice against, I figured if he’d lasted long enough to retire he had to be fairly good and he was, but he wasn’t quite good enough.

Murasaki had decided to forgive me for my actions at court because she could use me as a sounding board for a story she was writing about a fictional seducer who bedded all the ladies at court. I think it reflected her rather poor sex life, her husband was always ‘away on business’ so the best she could do was write about it and patronise Dodeshi’s. Not that I was immune, the first dildo I’d bought was getting plenty of use and I allowed myself a couple of others of novel design for variety. I was young I was healthy and frankly I was randy, but I was not getting pregnant so I was not letting a man near me. Despite this I suddenly found myself with child.


	36. An unexpected arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> who might want the privvy.

I arrived back from the shipyard late one day to be sat down at the table. That only meant one thing; we were having ‘a talk’. “So what do I need to know, you know I know that’s what’s coming next, so let’s get to the point because I want some food”.

Oh that wasn’t a good start; he was usually more cheerful than that “Is anything wrong”.

“No, sorry, that sounded worse than I meant it to. I am really hungry, we skipped lunch to get the mast in, but that’s all”.

“Well we can go and eat, but if we do we’ll be three and you have to say nothing until we’ve found a place, sat down and ordered”.

That settled it we needed to talk now. “Let’s talk at home and then if it turns into an argument you can throw our pots not some poor tavern owners”.

Deep breath “I’ve acquired a child”, total silence from opposite me so I pushed on “Her name’s Titu” Go for it “Titu come here please”.

Waifs and strays, how did I do it, I’d ‘acquired’ as she put it Haerd all those years ago, then she’d turned up and now there was a little scrap of a kid, five maybe, stood in front of me. “She’s your child, I’m not interfering; now can we all go and eat”

By the Seven Hells that had been easy. We went out and down the road to what was in practice our regular tavern, only it wasn’t a tavern like in Westeros because in Kyrotome everyone ate out so it was a lot of tables, the smarter ones on what would be the apartment level and while we mostly drank wine with our meals, we were there to eat not get drunk. Anyway we sat down and ordered a mix of seafood and I thought I’d better start a longer explanation. “She turned up this morning, I had the door open to let the air cumulate and she was stood there watching me tidy up and do some knife moves. She came inside a bit, then I realised she needed to pee, you know how little ones get if they want to go and won’t ask, twisting their legs together”.

“You mean like she is now”

“Damn, back in a minute”. Well it was two or three. By the time we got back the food had been served, and they both went at like they hadn’t eaten for a week. In Titu’s case she might not have. So while they stuffed I resumed my story “As I said she needed a pee; well by the time I noticed I figured it was pretty urgent, she’d got her hand stuffed in between her legs and when I pointed to the privy she wouldn’t move. I ended up carrying her over my shoulder. So I got her into the privy and onto a place and I think I know why she needs taking, she’s so small she can’t sit in a place without falling through so I had to kneel next to her and hold her up while she emptied herself out. When she was done I showed her how to clean up with the sponge, she clearly didn’t know how. I’ve been round the block right up to the top floors but no one’s claimed her”.

“Probably an immigrant orphan, they pitch up at the docks, the adults get taken as slaves and the kids get left behind, there’s a couple wandering round the shipyard most days”.

“That’s horrible, can the slave buyer do that”. I was still very uncomfortable with the whole institution of slavery, however it worked.

“Technically no, but in practice it happens”.

“Well then I’m all the more determined that I’m keeping her unless someone comes to me and says ‘I’m her parent’”.

“I’ve no problem with that, I’ll even fix a small seat over one privy hole, there’s loads of spare small bits of timber at the yard, I’ll just need something cut to size. My problem, or rather your problem is what are you planning to do when the Kittiwake’s ready and we sail”.

“She can come with us”.

“She can if you’re prepared to look after her, which in reality at her age means you won’t be crewing as well. It’s your choice but I won’t let you run a watch, much less act as master, it’s not safe and it’s not fair on her”.

I had to admit I’d not done anything for the rest of the day after she’d arrived that didn’t involve her. He was probably right, watch keeping was a full time job. “Any ideas then”.

“Hire a housekeeper, someone to look after the place when we’re not there, keep it clean, have the keys instead of leaving them at the shop and look after her”.

“That sound too easy and at the same time wrong. You know I spent time being passed round from not parent to not parent and I’d feel guilty doing it to someone else”.

“Is the world fair”.

“No it bloody well isn’t”. Shit we were in a tavern, I realised customers were looking at us and in particular me. I made sorry gestures and then realised someone was tugging my elbow. A little voice said next to me

“Ships no, ships sink”.

“Grandpa’s ship doesn’t sink, good ship”. That got me in trouble with both sides.

“Don’t get cheeky, mother”

“No, please no”.

I ignored the first and addressed the second. “Really, really sure”. Massive head nodding. Well that seemed to sort that, everyone was happy except me. I’d acquired a family on the Petrel, now most of them were scattered or scattering, even an orphan was happy to dump me for someone she didn’t know; was there something about me that kept making this happen. “Skipper why does everyone I care about leave me”.

“Well I’m not going anywhere in a hurry , but yes I’ll leave you one day and I’ll be a lot more irritated about that than you because it will probably mean I’m dead”. I looked at her face, two minutes ago she’d been behaving like a mother with Titu then suddenly she looked like a child again herself. “Come on, we’re getting maudlin for no purpose. I’ll bet little girls like sticky sweetmeats as much as a big girl I know, order than disgustingly gloopy thing they make here and you two stuff your faces.

He was right, don’t overthink things you can always find something to be negative about. He was also right about Titu, I got one mouthful of the sweetmeat before she’d wolfed the rest.

We still had six weeks before the Kittiwake was ready, plenty of time to get Titu settled in, a new seat made for the privy hole she could sit on, teach her a bit of trader since she clearly didn’t really understand it and find a housekeeper. The housekeeper was the new junior hand Isobe’s mother Atakata; so she was looking after my child and since Isobe was coming on the Kittiwake I was sort of looking after hers. Teaching Titu trader brought me up short and made me realise how little I could speak, at times it was often more, ‘let’s learn this together’.

To my surprise Titu’s father turned up a couple of weeks later. He didn’t handle the initial meeting well, walked in on Arya and tried to just take Titu. I came out of the back room to find him on the floor with a knife at his throat. He calmed down after that, said he’d left her in the street and when he’d turned around she’d gone. It didn’t entirely make sense and Titu was clinging to Arya clearly frightened of him. I asked him where her mother was and he said she’d died a couple of years previously. We ‘agreed’ we’d look after her for now and he could visit any time he liked. He turned up a couple of times in the first year but after that we never saw him again. Titu always seemed very nervous when he as around. In deference to his existence I refused to let her call me father so people used to get a little confused when she called Arya mum, but me by my name.


	37. First time out of the Kittiwake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We discuss my lack of modesty around my moonbleeds.

So we needed to recruit more crew. Of the twelve of us who’d arrived in the Petrel, six had reduced themselves to working part time filling two places with Elog, and we needed a total of forty two, that was thirtyfour new recruits. Arya, Haerd and I were on the Kittiwake, that only left Piot one man he knew on the Albatross. It bothered me a bit, but everyone else seemed to shrug their shoulders and no one ever said ‘Can’t we go back to how it was’ so I shut up and got on with it. So I’d got my crew, next sort out the watches, was Arya up to leading one; I wasn’t sure but I didn’t quite have the guts to tell her so, so she got the job.

My own watch, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that but he said I’d got it and he’d only ever be a cabin door away so I didn’t think I could refuse. So the Kittiwake was ready, we loaded up a collection of fancy goods from Kyrotome including a batch of Dodeshi’s mooncups. I’d taken to mine and wanted to spread the word as well as make money. Titu cried her eyes out convinced I wasn’t coming back. Despite me telling her how far we’d come she was convinced we wouldn’t make it once round the Inland Sea.

She was wrong, we made four stops going up the East side of the inland sea. Nowhere was really much different from a more, dare I say it, provincial version of Kyrotome. We sold and bought consistently at a profit, I discovered you can’t sell a mooncup without giving a demonstration, so it was a good job I’m not shy, particularly the week I was emptying it out while doing show and tell. There was a time being asked to show off my moonbleed would have seriously freaked me out, even if it had been Sansa asking, but I’d come a long ways since those days. We got as far North as you can go in the Inland Sea and on watch at night that meant it wasn’t hot. I got my old leather gear our and discovered I’d grown, not just about an inch in height but also my boobs and bum just didn’t fit, so I had to buy quilted jackets, my last trace of Westerosi clothing gone.

It was funny watching Arya trying to get herself into her leather gear, she was using some choice dockside vernacular in her cabin, then she came out to me in the common area and asked if I could help her get into it. I pointed out that nature had taken its course and even if I grabbed the softer parts of her anatomy by the handful it was just going to pop out again. She accused me of being a dirty old man and I plead guilty as charged and found an excuse to distract myself on deck.

Distracting myself on deck wasn’t hard, ship technology in the Dragon island was way ahead of Westeros, the Kittiwake could make ten knots in good winds, she fairly flew compared with anything I’d ever sailed in before. I could just stand on deck and listen to the sound of the hull through the water and the wind in the rigging. The biggest problem was the Inland Sea didn’t have that much wind compared with the Sunset Sea so often you’d be ghosting along in light breezes. Also I’ll take this opportunity to mentions the currents, being enclosed there’s no tides, water comes in at the Kyrotome Passage and then circulates sunwise to the north and widdershins to the south, but it’s a narrow passage so it doesn’t go that fast

We ran out of mooncups to sell as we reached the top of the east coast of the Inland sea, so we loaded up with some good quality building timber and worked our way back home. We’d been away about six weeks, and I’ll swear Titu had grown. It had been a profitable trading trip, but I didn’t feel like I’d explored new civilisations, there was a little voice inside me going, ‘stay in Kyrotome don’t miss her growing up’. “Skipper how much did you see of your kids when they were little”.

“It varied depending on where I was sailing, sometimes I’d get local runs and be home every few weeks then I might disappear for six months”. I’d seen the fuss she was making of Titu the first few days we got back. “In a way all sailors are bad parents, but without us the world would be a lot poorer place and most of us would have poorer families, but if you’ve had enough you pack in; like the rest of life you make what seems the best decision at the time”. I realised I was hanging on her answer because is she said she was stopping I realised was going to say the same and then things were going into deep and turbulent waters very quickly. I’d had lot of fun with the Kittiwake, but if Arya stayed here and got domestic I wasn’t chancing it that Fumi wouldn’t be in the door while I was away. I knew she’d probably prefer a young man but I was going to have my say before it became ‘Oh Marcus I wish you’d told me, but I’m pregnant now so…’.

“You’re right, it not as though I’m any great age, fun now responsibilities later”.


	38. All women are Slaves of the State

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We may have to mention the privvy again, but the plot doesn't work otherwise.

For our next tour we went down the Southeastern side and after a couple of uneventful stops we sailed into a port called Adventum and tied up. Dockers started to offload the cargo and Arya and I went to find who to pay our local taxes to; there were always taxes on shipped cargo and I found it looked friendlier if you went to them. The place was clearly rich and didn’t mind flaunting it, the officer invited us into a comfortable room, gave us wine and food, we discussed our cargo and paid a flat fee up front the rest to be based on ten percent of what we sold it all for. We were introduced to the man who would witness the sales, complete some paperwork and collect the money. All nice and relaxed all very friendly, business was business, taxes had to be paid but we’re all civilised men etc. I did notice that we were served by women who didn’t look too keen on the job, but it didn’t really make an impression. Before we left so we could avoid fouling the harbour I asked to use the privy. He took us himself. Like most of the cities in this area it was the communal row of holes with flowing water and a sea sponge on a stick to clean yourself up afterwards. We’re both used to these so when he sat down opposite so we could talk it was not what we hadn’t done in other places. Suddenly however he leaps in the air and starts pointing at Arya and shouting in his native tongue. A lot of armed men appear, short stabbing swords and us with no room to manoeuvre.

That was the trouble with having Stanson with me, I couldn’t fight back because he was an old man with no such skills. I knew what the trouble was as soon as he’d started pointing, he’d only just realised I wasn’t a man. We were taken outside, to be fair we were allowed to finish our crap and wipe ourselves down first, and then he dropped his bombshell. All women here were slaves of the state until purchased by a citizen; it was a steady way of taxing everyone. Eventually non-citizens were traded women by citizens as parts of business deals as servants or wives or both. I was to be auctioned tomorrow morning and no the skipper, as a non-citizen, couldn’t bid for me.

I asked him if he bought Arya could I then buy her from him, but he wasn’t a citizen either, apparently citizens here had to own significant amounts of property. Could I find a citizen and propose the same process. I could try but he would be surprised if it would work immediately, most citizens were fat old men who wouldn’t sell a girl as attractive as Arya until they’d become bored with the sex. Then yes they’d sell her to me rather than putting her to work somewhere. I pointed out we’d not be back and he said he hardly cared, plenty of other traders would. It was in his opinion our own fault for bringing a woman with us. Well there was no one else to appeal to “When in Adventum”. I was kicking myself, this was my fault, in future we would go nowhere without checking the local rules with other traders, why hadn’t I thought of that before now.

Well best of luck to any fat old man who tried to have sex with me. I spoke in our native tongue “Leave it skipper, let them sell me and then let them try and keep me. I’ll be back sooner than you think”.

No one reacted to Arya’s comment so I felt it was safe to reply “I don’t like it, I can think a few ways they can keep you secure once they’ve got you. You’re good but no one is invincible”. I said it but I didn’t feel that she was right. I’d seen her nearer to death than this twice and she was still standing.

“We don’t really have an alternative, or you and the crew are in trouble with me. Try and get business complete and be ready to sail; then when I come aboard we can get straight off. I’ll keep my eye on the wind and time it right”.

I wasn’t happy but my choices seemed limited so they marched her off. I asked around the dock and it was obvious I wasn’t going to get to even speak to a citizen before the next morning so I went back to the boat and told Piot to get us turned round as fast as possible. Sell cheap, buy at what they ask, don’t bother about a profit just get us ready to leave.

They took me outside, it was all pretty civilised, no one hit me, no shackles. As we walked down the road one of the guards even spoke to me “big problem no, sex few weeks, bored old man, ship man buy, go home”. It was just I didn’t fancy the ‘sex few weeks’ bit, I’d bled only a week or so ago so the next two weeks would be as good a time to get me pregnant as any. I might get away with being inventive in pleasing him for a while but I doubted he’d go weeks without getting inside me.

I ended up in a medium size room with about five or six young girls and a couple of older women. None of them spoke trader so I just sat in silence. One of the older women made ‘it can’t be helped’ type gestures and offered to give me a cuddle, but I wasn’t interested and she went to one of the younger girls who was sniffing and tried to console her. It really irritated me that these women could be so compliant, the girls were clearly just past puberty and but for the one they were sat there with a resigned almost bored look on their faces.

We were fed and the guard who’d walked me down the road and spoken to me gave me some more advice. “Run tomorrow no, other place go no”, he waved his hand at the others in with me “Girls bothered no”. He was right the others didn’t really seem bothered, even the sniffler had stopped and was eating her meal. If it was the norm and had been for generations you accepted it. Presumably for the young girls it was right of passage, reach puberty, get sold, have sex with a rich man, get sold for other purposes, move on. There wouldn’t even be a social stigma to getting pregnant.

Morning came and I was sold, first one up, lots of bidding, clearly I was a speciality item. I was still stood there while the rest were knocked down, they spent more time bidding for me than the rest put together. In one way it was gratifying, in another if left me wondering what someone was willing to pay that much money for. The sniffler was last, bad move on my part I’d have put her first to get her out of the way. No one was interested, in the end someone shouted out something that got a laugh and she appeared to have been sold. The buyers, or more likely theirs agents, came to collect us and I realised sniffler was coming with me. We were all lead back into a room, everyone else went down on the floor and pulled pants down or skirts up to bare their arses. I was pushed firmly in the back and joined them. Ow! needles in the cheek of my bum, I was being tattooed, presumably with my new owners mark. It didn’t take long and I was pulled back onto my feet. Some of the girls were still being done, they weren’t artistic creations X’s and I’s, numbers I suspected.

Sniffler and I were walked off by an attractive middle aged woman in fine clothing and lots of jewellery. We just strolled down the street together, with her doing no more than point the way. These people were supremely confident in their system. I could run but there was nowhere to hide, unless I timed it perfectly. That would be tricky, I need to give Stanson four or five days to sell, buy and load, then I needed to be on the dock, because if he hung around it would be obvious he was waiting for me. Unless he turned up first and bought me back but I really didn’t want that to happen on principle. Funnily the principle wasn’t being beholden to Stanson; I’d long ago stopped bothering about that when I realised he didn’t feel I would ever owe him anything. No what I objected to was the idea the man who had bought me could get even part of his money back. I wanted to discourage the purchase of foreign women by making the first one a very bad investment.

After a while she spoke to me in trader, she was my buyer’s wife and I wasn’t for him, I was for her son; father had decided he could have a foreign girl as a treat. I made some banal comment about that being ‘nice’, it’s easy to be vague in trader, but actually that bothered me; the last thing I wanted was some young stud with balls full of seed and the energy to use it. I’d rather been hoping for an old man who would be satisfied with a bit of energetic play and then fall asleep.


	39. Small boys can be surprising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's past puberty, but this chapter is explicit about he and his slaves sexual activities. If you want a precis so you can skip on go straight to the notes at the chapter end.

We got to the house, typical large building around its own courtyard, a couple of big communal rooms and lots of other small ones round the four sides. Sniffler was taken somewhere else and I was taken into a small room and dressed up. It was typical clothing of the southern Inland Sea cities, big semi-circles of high quality fabric, this was clearly silk, you just wrapped round yourself and held it in place with a pin or broach, in my case a large broach with a sizeable gem in it. You add sandals outdoors but indoors it’s bare feet. It’s light, easy to wear in the heat, very attractive, not practical for running or fighting but the people who wore it had others to do that for them and it was also very easy to have sex in, you just let it fall out of the way, or took it off in one movement.

The woman commented on my hair needing attention later, but for now I was left in the room. After about five minutes a young boy was brought in and his mother left. Strangely she locked the door after her, something she’d not bothered to do when I was there by myself. I looked the lad up and down, he was ten or elven, not more than inch taller than me and as thin as a whippet. His face was still baby smooth, no sign of beard or stubble. What was most obvious was that he was also frightened; he clearly didn’t want to be there. I began to wonder just how young he was. I’d been expecting to be rushed and mauled by someone overeager to get what he wanted and had been planning ways of taking all the energy and making sure it was expended on the floor time after time until he left me alone. Now I was opposite someone who looked like he would sit there and do nothing if I let him. I said ‘hello’ in trader and got no reply, he shook his head, so we weren’t going to talk our way through this then.

One of us had to do something and it clearly had to be me so I slipped my head out of my robe and threw it to the side of the room. I was standing there naked and he just faced me. All right it was my game then so my rules. I pulled the pin on his robe and slipped to the floor, all except the bit he was holding against himself. I kept pulling and it came into my hands. Then I took his hands and lifted them up; I half expected him to resist but he just let me do it. He was flaccid and not very big, I stuck with my age ten or eleven. Should I really be doing this, well his parents thought he and I should so as we’d been reminded when I was taken yesterday ‘When in Adventum”. Later I wondered why it had taken me so long to work this out. Since he still wasn’t responding I went over and knelt in front of him. I had no idea if this counted as a foreign trick but it seemed one way to start, so I did my best to stimulate him in a couple of different ways. After a couple of minutes I gave up he wasn't responding, I looked up at him, his face had embarrassed failure all over it.

I got him to sit down next to me. I put one arm round him and smiled at him. I did hand signs that I wanted to mean ‘relax I’m on your side’, but I’m not sure he got my meaning so I pulled him further down and put his head on my lap and just stroked his head gently. I suddenly realised I felt sorry for him, he might be part of system I thought was Grade One shit but he was just a scared little kid with an erection problem. I thought of Cuddles and his inappropriate fingering of my breasts, I hadn’t held that against him either. Was I getting soft, Stanson would have said I was just growing out of my compulsive hatred, in fact he had said it when I’d talked about Cuddles. Stanson, I couldn’t help thinking what would he do now, he was always full of answers. Unfortunately he wasn’t here so that was no good. Then I remembered what he’d said to me once about putting myself in another’s shoes, maybe I could put myself in his and think this through, or better still I could put myself in the shoes of this little lad what would he want me to do. I was still lost as to why he wasn’t interested in me Stanson had commented more than once that once a boy became interested in sex he was pretty well interested for life. Well maybe he had some particular interest. I remembered girls who’d had clients with some very specialist requirements and who had said that it was the only way the man in question could get excited. So what was this kid’s trigger, what would get his prick hard and firm and firing. I had to ask him.

I turned to him and pointed at him, took his hand and gestured towards myself. He didn’t seem to want to touch me. I lay back and opened my legs wide, no that was definitely wrong he looked even more scared. Without speech there was only one thing left I could think of before I started on the really strange, I turned round and stuck my bum in the air. There was a pause but I was sure I could hear movement he was doing something and I was fairly sure I knew what. Jurquen had never meant his training for this purpose, if only he could see me now what would he think. The idea amused me and then I felt what I was expecting, a small prick pushing at my bumhole. It was dry and although I tried to relax it wasn’t going in. I turned round and got a mouthful of spit on my hand and rubbed it on. The effect was as if I’d stabbed him, it wilted in front of my eyes. I motioned to him to use his own spit then turned round again and wiggled my bum at him. There was another pause more sounds of a hand working, then it was back and it was wet and slippery. I’d leaned forward, so now I pushed my hips back to meet him and tried to relax my arse ring. I felt him slip in, he wasn’t very big so it didn’t hurt at all, I was sure I’d pushed larger things out myself so I kept on forcing myself backwards until I felt his belly hit me. This was clearly what he wanted, he grabbed at my waist and started to pump himself in and out. It didn’t take long either, once he’d got the idea in his head he was as quick off the mark as I’d expected a boy of his age. He went rigid for a second then gave three or four more jerks and flopped own onto my back. I held him for a few seconds and then he was shrivelling and slipped out. I rolled on my back and pulled him back down onto my chest, then I lifted his head and smiled directly at his face. He smiled back a stuck his thumb up. That isn’t always a gesture of approval but I figured it was here, so I copied him and he was suddenly grinning at me and hugging me.

Well I knew where this should go next, if he really was a man’s man taking was as good as giving. I gave him a few minutes, but I didn’t think he’d need long so I put one finger up in the air and mimed him shooting forth, then held up two fingers and nodded. His grin nearly split his face and I could see his prick stiffening at just the idea. He looked a bit confused when I stood up though; he even started to wilt a bit. I pulled him up and then pushed him down with his bum in the air. I spat on my fingers to wet them and slid the middle one into his arse. I barely touched him and he was pushing his hips back to get me further in. Memories of conversations from years before came flooding back and I felt for a harder lump about an inch inside. Yes it was there, massage that one of the girls had said once and he’ll squirt so hard it will hit the ceiling. Well he was pointing the wrong way for the ceiling but that wasn’t the point. As I massaged he was starting to move forward and back a bit so as he came back at me I took the opportunity to push a second finger in. He didn’t flinch, so a few strokes later I got a third in, he was starting to gasp for breath but he was also slowing down as though either he’d run out of steam or it just wasn’t quite working. Despite the failure of my oral massage there was only one thing to do next, I reached round and slid my hand made into a tube down his cock, the effect was electric, he rammed himself hard onto my hand and I could see his juices spraying onto the floor. He fell into the wet puddle and I followed him down. I gave him one last finger then pulled myself out. He’d closed his eyes and was just lying there so I went and cleaned my hand up with a cloth and some of the water they’d left in the room. There was a pot of vinegar there as well and I used that as well, it was what you used in the toilet so it made sense.

As I went back to lie next to him I heard someone moving outside the door. So they were listening and maybe even looking through the key hole although I didn’t think that would work as we were out of the line of the door. He’d regained interest in life and sat up as I sat down next to him. I motioned to the door and mimed being listen to and he nodded. I pointed at him and covered my mouth then I started. Stanson was right, brothel girls faked all their excitement and it wasn’t difficult. I took my time working up to it, even pausing a couple of times as though we might be changing positions then I went for a final squeal at the finish. As I started he watched me as though I was some sort of lunatic, but at some point the penny dropped and when I finished he started to make some heavy breathing noises of his own for a few seconds and then shouted something out. As he did this he’d risen onto his knees and mimicked pumping motions before he fell onto me. He was gasping and I realised it was suppressed laughter. I heard movement outside someone was walking away. I pointed at the door, and mimed walking with two fingers. He smiled and nodded at me, then took my face in his hands and kissed me very gently on the forehead. I didn’t know how to respond to that so I just lay down and he came and joined me on the floor.

There were quilts and mattresses and we settled ourselves into them. It was about midmorning but it wasn’t hot inside the room so we snuggled and just lay there. There was only one problem, when I tried to relax I realised I was actually quite aroused. He hadn’t touched me in any sort of sexual way that I would normally enjoy, but the sight of him squirting and my own faking had left me feeling I had an itch between my legs. Part of me said I should just ignore it and it would go away but I wasn’t feeling like relaxing it had been a tense day and it was probably going to get more complicated later. So as gently as I could I started to rub myself, just one finger in just the right place. I tried to lie very still but inevitably as my arousal increased I moved and started to rock. The boy sat up and pulled the quilt away. I was too near the end to care; he might not want my body but at that moment I wanted my finish and I was going to get it. It was thus quite surprised when I felt his finger slip in next to mine. For a few seconds he copied me, stroke for stroke, then he used his other hand to gently take my hand out and kept going. I wasn’t going to ask him to stop and in a few seconds shuddered over the edge. When I opened his eyes he was looking down at me. Both thumbs went up and he nodded. In the end that had been really good and I didn’t have much energy left, but I managed a thumbs up. Then I thought about something and sat up and kissed him very gently on the forehead like he’d done to me.

They came and fed us about lunchtime and he went away. His mother came in and told me too lay down and open my legs. I knew what she was looking for and I was happy to oblige, she stuck a finger in none too gently and sniffed. Then she looked at me and told me I’d been a very good girl and she might have me given back to my ship if I kept it up and went back out. Sniffler came in and I was told she was my maid. The wife went out and sniffler started to clear things away tidily into piles in the corners. When she’d finished I tried to get her to tell me her name. I did the point at me and say Arya and then pointed at her act. At first she just stared at me like I was mad, but finally she seemed to get my meaning and pointed at herself and said Sabanto. Sadly I later discovered Sabanto just meant servant; that upset me. 

We spent the afternoon sat in the courtyard in the shade, the boy came past at one point with what looked like a tutor and stopped and pointed at himself and said Yoshitaka, I responded Arya and he grinned and went off with the adult. It was funny we’d got through the morning without bothering with each other’s names. Evening came round and we were sent to eat with the servants, then I was taken back to the small room. About the time I was thinking of bed Yoshitaka came in. I noticed he was brought by his mother but the door wasn’t locked. She was clearly waiting outside. I motioned him under the bedding and arranged him above me and between my legs. He wasn’t slow on the uptake and we started to fake sex, only after a short while he slid his hand between my legs and I didn’t have to fake it any more. What I didn’t realise as he finished me off was that he’d been playing with himself as well so only a few seconds after my gasps I felt a string of his juices hitting my chest. Gods I was out from under him fast. I got hold of a cloth and mopped upwards carefully, then soaked another in vinegar and wiped myself again carefully going up with a second one in the other hand to catch what dribbled well above my crotch. When I started he looked a bit surprised, but then he realised why I was doing it and made rocking baby motions then shook his head. I nodded vigourously and he seemed satisfied. 

Footsteps outside the door went away, mother had heard, and maybe seen, I’d deliberately arranged our bedding so the keyhole would let her watch. I gave it a while, went to the door and had a look round outside; the lights were all out and there was no noise, everyone was asleep. I went back to Yoshitaka in the bed and we repeated our morning performance, right down to the final kiss on the head before we went to sleep.

The next afternoon I was sitting in the shade in the garden after lunch. Sniffler was sat with me, she’d turned up promptly as we were woken up that morning and had fussed around me all day since. The mother arrived, she had some bad news Yoshitaka had asked his father to keep me for good; I was to be his concubine. Father had agreed immediately, the chance of me being sold back to Stanson was nil. She was sorry but it wasn’t all bad, I’d be in a high class household, I’d be unlikely to get thrown out even if he chose to marry someone else later. She told me she’d started in the same position as I was now and yet her son Yoshitaka was inherit the whole estate when his father died. I said nothing but I knew it wasn’t going to last, not least because when I failed to get pregnant questions would be asked. I felt sorry of Yoshitaka, but I couldn’t be the answer to his problems.

Then it came to me, Yoshitaka didn’t care who did what I did with him. So that night I kept sniffler with me. He came to me again, I sat her down and mime dor her to watch, Yoshitaka knew what I meant and added some verbal instructions. She didn’t look happy but she did as we wanted. We settled in under the bedclothes. To try and prevent the previous night’s possible problems I gave him a cloth and he understood why he had it. So went through our charade of sex arranged so anyone at the door would get all the right message but sniffler could see what we were really doing. Then even though I’d heard no one I checked the passage was clear and waited a while before I popped my bum in the air for him to start the real performance. By this time he was gaining confidence in his ability and he took his time inside me and enjoyed himself a lot more. Funnily when he finished and offered me his hand for my use I found I was just tired. I pointed to sniffler and he spoke to her but it was obvious she didn’t want to know. I did my mime act of her replacing me and he seemed happy with that. This was my plan; get sniffler to join in and replace me so I could leave with a bit of a clear conscience.

The next night we put sniffler under the bedclothes, but she produced a very disinterested performance that seems completely fake to me but since I again I couldn’t hear anyone outside I thought they’d stopped watching. We didn’t wait long before we tried to get sniffler to join in the game Yoshitaka really wanted to play. She wasn’t having anything with him going into her but we did persuade her to put one finger up his bum and I went down in front to offer him mine at the same time. He’d just got himself into me when the door burst open and father came in. Everything was on display, unless the man was total fool it was obvious that his boy was a man lover and we just doing our best to satisfy those needs for him. He wasn’t a fool, well not that much of one; he grabbed hold of Yoshitaka and started to hit him. That however was his fatal mistake, if he’d started on me I was in a very compromised position and not able to fight back. Freed of Yoshitaka up my arse I was able to roll away. Sniffler disappeared fast; I had strong suspicions she had talked, otherwise it was all very unlikely. That however was irrelevant to me, Yoshitaka’s father was big man I couldn’t muck about so although I did really want to kill him Yoshitaka’s I picked up a large piece of marble statuary and hit him hard across the back of the head. He hadn’t realised a slave woman was his real danger and he went down in one shot. What happened next stunned me. Yoshitaka picked up a second marble bust and had three more goes at his father; the pool of blood this produced left me in no doubt the man was now dead. No one else seemed to have been involved in the raid on our room. We stood there looking at each other.

Yoshitaka reacted first, was I getting slow. He threw my cloak/dress at me and pulled his own over his head. He picked up a pair of slippers and pulled me out of the room and down the corridor into another room; clearly his normal chamber. The room they’d kept me in had no outer window but this one did, Yoshitaka pulled the bolts, pushed the window open and shoved me out. He then threw his bust into the street. I hung on to the one I was carrying and turned to run, but I felt his hand grab my arm. Please don’t try and come with me kid, but all he did was lean forward and kiss me on the forehead, before waving me away. I didn’t need any urging and went down the dark road for all I was worth. Fortunately it was a moonless night and a smart neighbourhood so no one as on the streets and what few outer windows there were were fully shuttered.

I slowed down after about half a mile and got my bearings. I’d heard no screams, no shouts, no alarms behind me. Yoshitaka was obviously keeping quiet for now. I circled round a bit but it wasn’t long before I got to the docks. The marble went into the water where it was unlikely to be found and it didn’t take me long to find the Kittiwake. The mate was on harbour watch so when I came on board he just pushed me into the main cabin and banged on the skippers door, then went back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boy helps me escape from the house.


	40. I need to be a man Now!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm shape shifting again, to do this Marcus and I may have passed normal personal privacy boundaries and gotten a bit biologically specific. If you want to move on see notes at the bottom for a plot summary.

I was back on board the Kittiwake. Marcus came into the main cabin looking half asleep. “We have a problem, they may not going to notice me missing for few hours but when they do they’ll be here looking for me and it’s going to be a trousers down, cock out inspection. I can change my face and my build easily but I’ve never bothered to produce a cock and balls because you don’t normally take your trousers down while killing someone and at the moment I don’t know how to do it.”

“We can’t sail; there’s no wind, would you be better going back into the city and hiding for now”.

“I don’t think so, firstly there’s nowhere to hide, every woman in the city is tattooed with their owners mark. I can lose a tattoo but no tattoo is just as damming. Secondly they’ll keep a watch on the ship expecting me to return. No I’m here now I have to stay here as a member of the crew, but a male member.

“OK well let’s think about this, what goes on in your mind when you’re changing”.

“I feel a part of my body and I think it into the shape I want it to be, my nose a bit bigger and hooked for example, but I can’t do it in my crotch I don’t have a cock. I’ve tried making things bigger in general but that did just that made everything bigger, a bit like Peachbum in her fertile time”.

“Arya this is a very personal question, but if you want to solve the problem I think I have to ask; how much do you know about the bits between your legs, if I said draw me a picture could you”.

“No”, it occurred to me that was strange; I probably knew better what a man looked like then I did.

“Right then, again this is going to push the statement that you made to me once about not having any sense of personal modesty to its limit but I want you to open your legs for me”.

“Wha.., why!”.

“Because I can touch parts of you and suggest how you change the shape of what I touch. If you can feel what I’m touching you’ll know what you’re doing”.

“What makes you think you know what to touch and how I should change it”.

“I’ve told you before I read books, all sorts of books, well once I read one written by a man who cut up corpses to work out how we’re made so he could try and cure illness more effectively than bleeding you with leeches and telling you to pray a lot. He had pictures, not just of an adult woman, I’m married I’d seen that, but also of small babies that had miscarried well before time. He had this idea that we all start out the same and then turn into boys or girls as we get bigger. In one sense the whole thing was a bit gruesome but the whole idea made sense. I think I can remember enough of the drawings to at least let you try”. I noticed while I’d been describing this she hadn’t made a sound, most people told me to stop about half way through. I’d learned it was something just not to discuss.

It was weird, he was weird, but I wanted it to work so weird be damned. “Right we do it, but you keep your cock in your trousers or I’ll take the end three inches off it, understand”.

The threat was inevitable. “Understood”.

I threw the silk cloak off, he was right I’m not modest, it’s my body. If you don’t touch it you aren’t doing anything to me, but he was going to touch it. Did I want to do this or not; I didn’t think I had any choice. I wasn’t just a runaway slave I was a murdering runaway slave. I lay down on the floor and opened my legs.

I wanted to keep this as dispassionate as possible so I said nothing and knelt down. She’d spread her legs out so pretty much everything was on display. So what to do first, I stroked my fingers down both the inner flaps of flesh. She tensed, which was natural but said nothing. “Don’t do anything for now, I’m going to feel things then tell you what to do with the bit you can feel, but I want you to wait till I’ve finished and try and do all the bits together. Can you manage that”.

“I don’t know but I’m going to have to try”.

“Good then make those pieces swell and push then together, imagine there’s a narrow tunnel down the middle but push them together to make the shaft. I very gently touched what she called her rubbing button, “That bit is going on the end of the shaft so it needs to get bigger and wrap round so there’s the tube through it, that’s making the man’s acorn”. I pulled the hood around the button back “That bit stays with the last bit, that’s the bit of lose skin that covers the end”. I had to look closely but I as fairly sure I could see the opening she peed out of and her birth canal entrance was clearly visible. I put a finger gently on one and slightly in to the other. “When you wrap the shaft round you need to keep the path to those points open”. Finally I took the outer skin folds in my hands “Make these big and saggy and bulky and bring them together under the shaft to make the ball sack”. I sat up “Go on then give it a try”.

Thank fuck he’d finished that had been getting just a bit too arousing for comfort. Right so, expand and join, expand and move forward…

I suppose I should have looked away, but I thought if I watch I can comment if she needs to correct something and I could but I had to admit to myself it was also very pleasant to look at such an attractive young woman.

He wasn’t saying anything so I assumed it looked right so far. Oddly it seem dot feel right, as though he was correct my body could go this way if it just knew the route.

“Not so big, it all looks quite right but it’s a bit over size”.

I let things all shrink just a little, “Better”.

“I’d say perfect for a randy young man about to have his first serious bout of sex so now let the shaft and head shrink and in particular the shaft go soft so it just flops”.

That might be difficult; I was feeling really quite randy myself.

Nothing showed any signs of going flaccid, was she actually aroused and erect. “Think of something complicated like navigation calculations to take your mind off it and see if it goes down of its own accord”.

I had a better idea than navigation, I pictured myself doing my very worst complicated embroidery.

She got it, everything went suitable limp. Her ball sack just didn’t look quite right though, which was hardly surprising there were no balls in it. I cupped it in my hands “Try and imagine two pebbles one on each side in here”.

It felt like everything collapsed and relax at once. Then he cupped me and it twitched again. Concentrate on the two pebbles.

“That’s better”, I let go and took a look. “Perfect”.

“Good”. I needed to get out of his sight before I did something I’d regret. “I’m going to put some of my clothes on”, and I went into my cabin and closed the door behind me.

Well that had been strange, but I had to admit to myself enjoyable on two fronts, we’d successfully solved her problem and I’d enjoyed a view I hadn’t seen since my wife died. She was in my mind a very beautiful young woman and not just because of what she’d done in front of me. I knew she was envious of her sister’s appearance, was it worth telling her how good she looked or would she interpret that as the start of me trying to seduce her.

I pulled on a shirt and pants and left my feet bare, lost my breasts and the tattoo, made my hair a lot longer so I could put it in a ponytail; instant cabin boy. My new cock didn’t seem comfortable in my pants so I cupped my hand under it and rearranged myself into a more comfortable position. That struck my mind, how often had I seen a man do that and thought why, was he trying to impress me, no his dick just felt squashed. I also thought about having Stanson between my legs and how controlled and careful he’d been, which was good of him, but he might have said he liked what he saw, or was I in some way odd and he didn’t want to comment.

They actually took until the middle of the next morning to show up on the ship; several men all with the typical short swords and a dozen more on the dockside. We were told to parade all hands on deck and they searched the ship, which didn’t take long since the holds were still empty. The man in charge came out of the hold obviously unhappy and stomped down the front of the crew. He stopped in front of Arya and looked her over very carefully then suddenly grabbed her balls.

He shot his hand in and grabbed me, squeezed fairly hard. It took me second to think, then I gasped and doubled up a bit like a man would if I’d done the same to him.

I saw her bend forward, I waited for the sudden movement and the knife to go into his crotch but it didn’t happen. She gasped quite convincingly, he let go, walked round behind her “Pants down”.

I pulled my pants down, that was the easy bit moving the skin around so the tattoo didn’t show. I didn’t quite wiggle my bum at him, but I was so unconcerned it must have shown. “Pants up”, I obliged.

He gave her one last look before coming back to face me. “Girl back report” he snapped and stalked off the deck “See girl report” I said, thinking it wasn’t even a lie, I was sure I wouldn’t get to see a girl until we’d loaded up and were out to sea and that proved to be the case.

As the other men turned to follow their boss off the ship I recognised the one from the market day. As he passed me I’ll swear he muttered ‘Boss knob’ out of the side of his mouth.

We got loaded as fast as we could without making it obvious we were actually running out of town and tacked out on the last of the sea breeze just before sunset. Just before we left a rather haughty looking woman turned up with a small kid and a retinue of servants. As we slid away from the dock wall the kid made a kissing motion towards the ship. I was sure Arya knew what that was about but I wasn’t sure I’d find out any time soon. 

Of course it set the crew chattering again, they’d all thought as soon as he’d grabbed me I was done for. Comments flew around ”I’ve always said she had balls now she’s proved it” was the most popular. Some of the allusions to the uses of small cabin boys were not quite so welcome, but I chose to hope these were also jests. As to Yoshitaka turning up on the dockside I can only assume that with his father dead he had inherited and was now in charge. His mother’s face had certainly been curdled milk. What I now had to decide was when I would tell Stanson of what I’d done to get free. I suspected it might be a while. I knew he was angry with himself that he’d put me in a dangerous position and I wasn’t sure the full story would make him feel any better. He could be very protective of me, which was sweet when it wasn’t a nuisance.

She finally told me about her time with Yoshitaka nearly ten years later. She was right my first reaction was anger and recrimination at the consequences of my carelessness. The possibilities could have been so much worse. Strangely she was more worried about my reaction to what she’d done than what might have been done to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get away with playing a boy and we leave town


	41. How high can you get, how low can you go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've got a new toy and I want to pay with it, maybe in a rather childish and sexual manner. If you want to skip on you're not missing any plot although we do make a point about sexual ignorance.

So I’d learned how to make a convincing male cock and balls. I couldn’t help trying it out a few more times. It’s not necessary when you’re dressed and we‘d yet to come across anywhere where people walked round naked so this was curiosity pure and simple. I suppose I was a bit like a ten or eleven year old boy when his prick gets bigger and he gets his first erection, he starts to fiddle with it to see how it works. Well I imagine they do I’ve never actually asked. I could ask Stanson, he always says I can ask him anything, but talking about sex with Stanson and then not doing it is tricky for both of us so I thought I’d stick to experimenting.

My first few tries weren’t entirely successful. I was trying to remember where Marcus had touched and how I’d arranged things and it wasn’t easy, not least because I have to be honest thinking about Stanson’s hands touching my crotch made me aroused and things seemed to get out of proportion, or I’d give into the urges and just start rubbing myself. I realised my problem was how little I knew about myself ‘down there’. I realised a mirror was a starting point so I could at least have a look, but not only did I not know what everything looked like, I had no real words to describe the different bits when I took a look. I could feel the little knob that I rubbed, so that was my rubbing button, but after that, there had to be a hole to pee out of and one for a baby and my moonblood. I realised some doctor must have a book of names, but I hadn’t quite got the guts to go and ask in a shop in a city I didn’t know “Hey do you have detailed drawings of women’s crotches for me to study”. What had happened at Adventum, had made me more cautious about societies I didn’t understand. In the end there seemed only one real way.

“Marcus how good are you at drawing”.

“That depends on what you want drawing and how. I can produce a navigation plot easily, I can sketch a building say or a ship well enough for other people to recognise it, a human face that might be pushing my luck”.

“What about some other human bits. Could you remember what you saw between my legs and draw it out for me”.

“I could draw something generally female in a simple diagram”.

“That would do, and are their names for the different bits, you could write down and mark which was which”.

“You mean medical type terms that a doctor might use, or the sort of slang terms a bunch of men use”.

“I’d rather have medical terms but I suppose slang would be better than nothing. I realised when you were fumbling around down there back in Adventum that I know more about what’s hanging between your legs than my own and I don’t like that idea”.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t been fumbling but I let it ride “I can draw you something and mark the names as best I can”.

And he did, he was right he was no artist, it was a circle here, a couple of halfmoons there and some of it wasn’t named so much as described. Also some of the descriptions were clearly a man’s view of things, my rubbing button was a ‘little acorn’ and skin immediately round it a ‘foreskin’. I thought the latter looked more like a hood and I wanted something better for my rubbing button, but an acorn it wasn’t so for now a rubbing button it would remain. Best through was he’d also marked the bits to make it a cock, as he’d told me the first time. That made things a lot easier. I practiced; in an emergency could I grow a convincing cock and balls in less than five minutes. It took a while but yes in the end I could. I also realised it was best to grow my set with an erection and then let it go soft. I got a better idea of size that way because yes I realised I’d seen more men erect than not. That did mean a bit of rubbing to get me started and then resisting the temptation to finish off so that things would go down. I realised that might be misinterpreted in a ‘show them you’re a man’ situation so I started all over again having studied my soft cock long enough to be sure I knew how it felt when it looked the right size.

I’d managed all this without involving Stanson anymore, which seemed to me a good idea right up until I got myself drunk. It wasn’t deliberate I didn’t drink heavily, a cup or two of wine was fine, but one night we had picked up something that was very sweet, almost syrupy as cargo and I got hold of a small keg for myself. I didn’t realised that it must be laced with spirits until I was three sheets to the wind, or pissed as a fart to you landlubbers. After that I actually don’t remember much so the rest of this is going to be what I read in Marcus rutters.

I’d had a couple of mouthfuls of spirits, while she was drinking this disgustingly sweet gloop I’d rejected outright. I thought she might be getting a bit a bit drunk but I had no idea just how drunk until she looked at me and said

“Bet I can make my cock bigger than yours”.

“Since you can make yourself bigger than me I’m sure you can and I think it’s time you stopped drinking”.

“Oh come on stop being serious, let your inner silly young man out for once. You’ve been really really good to me I know that, but sometimes you are just a teeny weeny bit boring”.

I had a feeling this was going to end in tears, but I also did remember from when I’d been young and drunk that I hadn’t been easy to persuade to be sensible so I thought I’d better let her go where she wanted and just try and avoid anything happening that she would regret when she sobered up. “Well my silly young man would probably have challenged you to do something in retaliation, something I thought I’d win at”.

“Go on then”. 

I’d dug myself that hole hadn’t I. A silly boy’s game that I could make sure didn’t get out of control. “Well the normal one would who can piss highest up the wall, but we haven’t got a spare wall so it will have to be up the mast”. We were in port it was dark, I could send whoever was on deck below for ten minutes.

“You’re on”.

“And no miracle extensions so you start from three foot in the air”.

“Would I”.

I strongly suspected he answer was yes, but kept that to myself. We went topside, Haerd was doing harbour watch, which was good because I knew when I told him to spend quarter of na hour in the fo’c’sle he’d just do as he was told and not ask questions. “Right upwind of the mast”.

“I’m not stupid”.

She was drunk enough not to be standing still, there a sort of seaman’s roll despite the fact the ship was tied up and motionless. “In your own time then”. We were as far North as we’d been in a long while and there was a cool breeze on deck. As soon as it hit me I felt the need to piss so this shouldn’t be hard. I pulled myself out, leaned slightly back and let go. As you get older this sort of thing isn’t what it was on your youth but I manged a satisfying stream that was rising up the mast. Then something hit the wood a foot above my effort and started going upwards. “OK you win”. That didn’t stop her, she’d clearly drunk more than even I’d realised, we stood there for a good minute and a half until she finally finished”.

“You know the trouble with a prick, the last few drops always run down your trouser leg don’t they”.

“Well they don’t have to”. What had I got myself into, it was like having my son back aged four and breeching him.

“Then what do you do”.

“If you pull the skin back so the acorns exposed and then shake it gently the last few drops sort of flick out of the end of the pipe”.

“Like this”

I’d been carefully keeping ‘eyes front’ but she stepped in front of me and waggled it, I could hardly stare at the stars. “Yes, enough, there’s a lad’s joke more than two shakes is a wank”.

“Yes next game, who can wank off highest”.

I wasn’t sure she could wank off at all but regardless I wasn’t having her try that on deck. “You can’t do it accurately enough to measure height”

“What then, there has to be a game young lad play to prove who’s grown up fastest”.

Her voice was getting louder so I pulled her back towards the cabin before half the fo’c’sle could listen in. “Well I suppose that would be who’s fastest”. She came with me into the cabin easily enough, then when I let go spun round and half fell onto her cot.

“Come on then, one two three go”

She started, I didn’t, I was pretty sure she would win, I didn’t care and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try. It became obvious however that this was going to be a no score draw, she was working her hand for all she was worth on a flaccid prick that showed no signs of getting evenly vaguely erect. I put my hand on hers to stop her “Looks like you’ve got the classic case of brewers droop, still that’s part of learning to grow up with a prick”. She glared at me.

“No fair”.

I saw her face change, grabbed the front of her shirt and shoved her head over her privy hole just in time to get the contents of her stomach overboard. There was a bit of groaning then another good heave. I wrapped my arms around her just under her rib cage and jerked upwards like I would if she’d taken on water after going overboard and got a third load out. More groaning then she slumped to the floor. I wiped her face down, she wasn’t really in that bad a state, I didn’t want to think of the smell in the cabin if I’d been a few seconds slower. After that she went into bed with no complaints. I made sure she was on her face with her head over the side and over a bucket and settled in to keep an eye on her for the rest of the night. Haerd stuck his head in about two minutes later, looked, grinned and went back on deck.


	42. I've started so I'll finish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the drunken stupidity comes the consequences. This is about a drunken teenage girl learning about being a drunken teenage boy.

I woke up in the morning with a mouth that felt like someone had shat in it and a head that was ringing like the ship’s bell. Stanson wasn’t there so I made it onto the deck to find some water to be greeted by a cheer from the rest of the crew loading cargo. I got into the galley and found water, got back onto the deck and went in the direction of the gang plank. Haerd took my arm and pushed me back towards my cabin. As I went through the door the skipper was back inside.

“So how much do you remember of last night”

I wracked my brain, not much “I can remember throwing up in the privy with you holding me”.

“Anything else”, with luck the answer would be no.

There had to be something embarrassing, it was the way he asked. Suddenly a vision of my back arched and a fountain lifting up to splash on the mast. Oh gods who’d seen that “Did I make a fool of myself in front of everyone”

“No just me”. I’d asked already and everyone had kept their heads down when Haerd had come offthe deck.

Just him; that was enough. “I suppose that puts me back in the silly little girl class again”

“No you did such a good example of a pissed up young lad I’d have to at least award you that. On a scale of one to ten I’d say you didn’t get much beyond a three though. The list of things you didn’t do that I’ve seen young deckies do is quite long, you kept the contents of your bowels out of your pants, I got your head in the privy so you aren’t cleaning a stinking cabin out either. You didn’t throw up over anyone who might pull a blade on you and you only waved your dick at the mast not a passing woman whose husband would go for you with a knife. All in all I’d say it was quite a tame evening, but I’d advise against taking that as a challenge to do worse next time”.

I held my head “There isn’t going to be a next time”

I’d heard that so often I laughed and got a sour look in return.

I had to ask, the details were probably not as bad as my imagination; “So what did I actually do”

“Not much really; challenged me to a contest who could piss highest up the mast and won then to who could wank themselves off fastest and couldn’t even get a hard on”.

I found that last bit difficult to believe, I’d never had the least trouble getting myself rigid, in fact there’d been times I’d had to do my navigation sums to get it to go soft “Really”.

“Yes classic case of brewer’s droop, clearly when you’re drunk your body acts just like any other male”.

Someone dropped something heavy on the deck and my head shuddered in sympathy.

“Get your head down, forget today and we’ll discuss this a bit more when you’re feeling better”.

I rolled onto my cot thinking ‘that will be fun’, but to be fair to him he didn’t actually mention it again.

She stayed away from drink for quite a while after that. I said nothing more other than pointing out when she did ask for a glass of wine one night that her lack of bodyweight meant she would never keep up with physically bigger people. I thought of my wife claiming I’d dodged most of these ‘growing pains’ with my own children by being at sea and wondered what she’d make of me doing it all with Arya instead, but thinking of her made me maudlin so I focussed on something else.

It took me a while but I was drawn back to what I thought of as my ‘new’ me. I went back to calling myself Arry in my head when I rearranged myself. The next step was inevitable, one night Stanson left me to myself and Arry decided to go the whole way. I got hold of a couple of monthly rags and started on myself. This was probably the easiest part of being a man, Sansa and I’d seen our first boy wanking himself one afternoon in the stables when we were up in the hayloft and he was down below in an empty loose box and we’d been no more than eight and nine respectively. Since then in the brothel I’d seen plenty of girls giving a man the same treatment so it was with a certain sense of assurance I lay back and started to stroke myself. It all happened, I caught it all in my rags but it was far from the most exciting one I’d ever had and it had taken me just as long as normal. I’d sort of expected it to be quicker. The boy we’d watched in the stables must have been in his mid-teens like I was now and he’d got it all over within a couple of minutes.

I was frankly disappointed; I wanted to be all boy when I looked like a boy. There was another thing, one night I’d deliberately let it shoot onto my chest and then got some of it into my hand to look at. It wasn’t the same colour, Boy’s fluid come out creamy like milk, mine was clear, pretty much like what I got on my fingers when I pleasured myself as a girl.

Something else was niggling at my mind while I was doing this. It was a sense of uneasiness, not at what I was doing, I was sure if life had been more normal Sansa and I would have done a few unladylike things as we got older together to answer the questions I was asking myself now. No what was making me uneasy was the amount of time I was spending examining Arry and not Arya. I’d got a mirror from a market and had a good look round myself to make sure I fitted Stanson’s drawing, but that had been it, yes I look like the drawing, well all the bits were where they should be and that was enough. But Arry was a fascination, was that normal. There was only one person to ask, but this time I had to do it sober.

I’ll say that for Arya, she genuinely didn’t have a sense of ‘polite boundaries’, I couldn’t imagine how she would have ever been wife to some Westerosi lord. So it wasn’t entirely a surprise when she started her next explicit conversation with me.

“I know some boys like boys and girls like girls, how do they know”.

“Since it doesn’t apply to me I don’t know. I’ve never asked either, lads like that tend to keep quiet about it in our business; it’s not always popular. I’d assume that it’s just how you feel, I look at a pretty girl and I get the feelings I get, the lust and the love; so I suppose they get those feelings looking at someone the same sex. So if you’re worried or not sure just think back to who you’ve felt those emotions for in the past. I presume the lad you bedded felt right”.

“Yes Gendry felt very right, it wasn’t when we were in bed that that was all wrong”.

“Then I’d say you are like most other girls, what most people would call normal”.

“But what about when I’m a boy”. I paused, this was the tricky bit “I seem to be more interested in making myself male and examining my cock and balls than looking at my lips and button in my girl form”.

“That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, you’re a girl so you’re interested in the male parts for when you decide to set up with a male. I think there’s a lot more to being a girl or boy than just the shape of what’s between your legs. However much you want to be able to behave like a boy I’m sure you are very much a girl or woman. Your skills are very unusual so it puts you in unusual situations. Personally I’d forget all about it, do what feels comfortable or answers questions you have and don’t overthink it, but if you wanted the ultimate proof I’ll take you to a brothel at our next stop and you can give a girl a go”.

“You’d take me to a brothel”.

“If it was what you wanted; it wouldn’t be the first time”.

“What do you mean”.

“I mean I’ve had young lads on my crew, first trip away from home, never been with a woman before and the crew have chipped in to raise the money for them to go to a brothel and a couple of us have gone in with them, not for a girl, just sit and wait downstairs, make sure they get their money’s worth”.

“I’d have thought a boy like that would want to keep that sort of inexperience quiet”.

“They might want to, but the older hands know what’s what, I’ve know the fathers of most of my young crew, that’s why they get taken on. It’s a family thing, just as much as your lords and princes”.

“I suppose it is and I’ve overheard a father talking about getting a girl for his son before a wedding, so he knew what he was doing when he met his virgin wife”.

“So do you want to go and give it a try”.

“No I don’t think I do. I don’t feel an urge to bed a girl so it would just be an experiment in do the physical bits work. If they didn’t it would be embarrassing and if they did I think I’d probably feel I’d wasted my money”.

“There you go then, you’ve answered all your own questions”. I hoped she was going to accept that because I didn’t want to tell her I’d seen the look in her eyes and I knew she was interested in men.

“Yes it does doesn’t it, thank you skipper”. Years later I did bed a woman but that was another story entirely. I thought this was a good time to tackle one other thing that was niggling me, “Remember when you did me the drawings”.

“Yes”.

“You called my little rubbing button an acorn, which seems silly it’s much too small for an acorn. I want a better name for it, something shorter but something I can feel reflects how important a bit of me it is”.

“I think you can call it what you want, I used the term I’d, unsurprisingly, read in a medical book”.

Did you and your wife have a name for it”.

“No my wife didn’t talk about sex like you do, she was happy enough doing it until she got older but it wasn’t a subject for conversation beyond, ‘I like that do it some more’ or, ‘no not that’. It’s red and valuable you could call it your ruby”.

“Rubies are all edges though, pearls are smoother, can you get pink pearls, I’d like to call it my pearl”.

“Then call it your pearl, it’s precious to you, who cares what colour it is”. I look into it later and you can get pink pearls, from the Queen Conch, I bought her one a few years later to wear as a necklace. She’d use it as a signal when were socialising, if she rubbed it she was thinking of me rubbing the lower one and it was time for us to make our excuses and leave.


	43. Admission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of gratuitous fluff here, you don't get much, I'm not that sort of girl, so wallow in it if you want to.

I was half way out of my cot before I realised why I as moving and what I was doing. The scream was wild animalistic and very loud and coming from Arya’s cabin. She was hunched on her cot and the noise was coming from her. I went over and took hold of her, her arms clamped round me and the scream turned into a gasping panting, her body shuddering against mine. It had been a while since my wife died and I’d been with a woman, but it’s not the sort of thing you forget so I knew what was happening, but she had a grip like a vice so I put my arms loosely round her and held her. Her face was flushed a deep crimson and her eyes were open but the iris had rolled up so only the whites were showing. I just kept a gentle hold until the shuddering stopped to be replaced by gulping gasping breaths. I could feel her heart thudding in her chest, massive pulses like it wanted to burst.

I realised I was hanging onto someone in a death grip, my vision cleared and it was Marcus, his arms were round me, not clamped hard like mine but a soft restraint that felt so comforting, so right that it washed over me like a tidal wave. I’d finally found what I was really looking for in the West. I looked him straight in the eye and said “I love you”, then I kissed him and held him for what seemed like a very long time.

In the end she had to come up to breath. I matched her stare that was boring into my eyes “I love you too. I think I’ve loved you since the moment I set eyes on you, but you’ve been hurt so much and I don’t want you to be hurt any more so I couldn’t say anything in case it drove you away from me. This isn’t going to be simple if you want to live an independent life”. There was a long pause; I could see confusion and uncertainty in her face. I needed to change the subject and give her time to think. “The screaming, what was going on”.

I fixed on the question, there was something I could answer amongst a sudden sea of things I couldn’t. “It’s not a short story”.

“Life never is”.

“I’ve told you before I’m a warg. I’m paired with a Direwolf called Nymeria, sometimes when I sleep my mind goes to hers, I can roam the forest, hunt just to eat; she has a pack, she’s the alpha female. There are times I’ve thought about killing myself because they say if I do and she’s still alive my mind would go to her for the rest of her life and at times that has seemed like a good option”. I felt him go tense. “But I’ve realised it would also be a very short option, she’s over half way though her natural life span. I never believed I couldn’t make my life better and enjoy living for much longer” and he relaxed. I’d always wondered how I could frighten him, now I knew a way, just one I wouldn’t ever want to use. “Last night I went to her and she’s in season. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Having sex with Gendry was good but it was like a dribble of water poured on my head out of a bowl compared to being under a hundred foot waterfall. I screamed in my mind and clearly my body did too, then I realised I was in your arms. If you took hold of me that was probably enough to wake me and break the link”.

“You nearly frightened me to death, God’s knows what the crew on watch thought”.

“None of them rushed in to rescue you”.

“Probably scared you’d eat them too”. Seven bells rang outside and the voice of the first mate called out “Half hour to watch change skipper, there’s breakfast in the galley”. “Ay Hatakami I’ll be out”. I turned back to Arya “You want to eat”.

“Like a ravening wolf”.

She was grinning at me, it was a bit manic but it was the happiest I’d ever seen her. “I’ll go and get both bowls”. I got up, just in my shirt and walked out. It was only when I was half way down the deck I realised I’d come out of her cabin door. Well that would give the fo’c’sle something to chatter about.

As he walked out I stood up, realised I was stark naked, decided it was too late to care and pulled on a sleeveless shirt and some short breeches and walked out onto the deck. We were on a lazy starboard tack with the wind ghosting across the deck at 4-5 knots, every stich of canvas set and the boat sliding through the water with barely a sense of motion. The rising sun was off the lee bow so I walked across to the rail and just stood there my arms outstretched as though I was going to make a grab for it and let the heat soak into my body. I wasn’t sure my world could ever get happier.


	44. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You had the fluff, now we discuss what happens next.

I’d done the forenoon watch, he’d done the afternoon and collected some food and he was just sitting there opposite me chewing away like it was another day sailing the Dragon Lands. We had the two hours of the first dog to sort our lives out if we were going to. 

I could see it written all over her face, she wanted me to tell her what we were going to do after this morning’s statements. Since I had nothing to say on the subject I was going to leave her to either figure it out or tell me she had specific plans.

“Are you going to pretend nothing happened this morning then”.

“No, we’ve both taken a step along the road to being honest with each other, a big step. I’m a very happy man, I’m relieved it’s happened because I think we’ve both known how we felt for a while but not said anything and in a way that was silly. We both believe in honesty, sometimes even brutal frankness so this will make life together a lot easier”.

“But what are we going to do about it”.

“What should we do about it”.

OK, for some strange reason he wanted me to say it, I’d work out why later. “People in love normally have sex. Before or after marriage is meaningless to us here, I’d have thought the idea would appeal to you”.

“It does appeal to me, a lot; but I have a simple question, are you ready to get pregnant and have babies”.

“You’ve lived a lovely sheltered life Marcus, I can think of ten ways to pleasure you without getting pregnant and enough for you to pleasure me as well”.

“I’m happy with you pleasuring me any time you want, my problem is when we go in the reverse direction. I know I can set out to do something safe, but I’m not convinced once you become aroused you won’t try and push it further and I won’t let you do what you want and the next thing we know we’re both going “Oh the Gods did that happen and Titu will have a little brother or sister”.

“But I don’t want, when it comes to getting pregnant surely that will let me stay in control”.

“The thinking you doesn’t want, but inside I think there’s another you who does and she’s not letting on to you. She’s a pregnancy assassin waiting to strike when your guard is down”. That made her grin, which was good because I’d thought my way through this a long time ago and I didn’t see a happy ending until she got broody, which I thought might happen before I died, but I’d also accepted might not. “I know you never do things without putting everything into it, so I think you’re going to be a very passionate lover and that means you’ll be at most risk of losing control of what’s going on. You know, you told me, that the brothel girls you learned your techniques from weren’t in the last bit passionate or aroused by what they were doing, all the oohing and ahing was a fake for the customer; so it was easy for them to stay in control”.

He had a point; that was the irritating thing about him he always had a bloody point. I could feel the rage rising inside me, of courses I was going to be passionate; I was going to bloody well screw him till his eyes popped out. Then I remembered how last night had started; Nymeria, clearly on heat, her body begging for the release of the dog inside her. I thought back to discussions with Peachbum, where she’d tried to explain her fertile urges to me, even to a comment by The Great She Dragon of the East, that she’d known who my body had wanted to mate with even when I was busy hating the self-same people. “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck; Fuck!”.

“Yes, or rather no”.

I wanted to bang my head on the table in frustration. He was right I’d known I loved him for months, it had taken me a while to admit it to myself and then even longer to admit it to him because I was scared of the consequences. Now I’d made the admission and these were the consequences, it hadn’t got me anywhere. He came round the table and sat next to me put his arm around me, gently. That almost made it worse. I turned and looked him in the eye “I’m not accepting this, for now, but not in the long run. I’m going to find a way to screw the living daylights out of you and not have to worry about the consequences and the old gods help my inner mother if she tries to stop me”.

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. It was such a preposterous idea, but that was part of what I loved about Arya; it didn’t matter how preposterous the idea, if she wanted to make it happen she wouldn’t stop until it did.

“I don’t see what’s so funny”.

“I just feel sorry for the old gods and your inner mother that they’ve been daft enough to get into a fight with you”. I squeezed her just a little bit harder.

He was right, sometimes I said the most stupid things, but sometimes I also made them happen.


	45. We go home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> but before we do I discuss the consequences of sweaty small clothes and a few other bodily things.

We were up in the far Northwest of the Inland Sea at a place called Chersky and it was heading into winter. As a result it felt like we were going home, buildings that bore more than a passing resemblance to Winterfell and its surroundings, people dressed in heavier, mostly wool or leather, clothing. I’d got padded jackets that were warm enough but I suppose it was a bit of nostalgia, I went out and bought some local men’s clothing to wear in place of my Kyrotome style jackets.

I need to clarify something here, on land I normally dressed like a working woman, jackets to my knees, no breeches, on board ship I didn’t like stuff round my legs so I wore men’s knee length breeches and even shorter jackets, but Kyrotome style men’s breeches had room in them for a nine month pregnancy so I didn’t bother with a loin cloth. I’d realised when experimenting with my prick that the real reason to wear a loin cloth is to avoid things flopping about as you move. It’s more like a woman’s stays than anything else.

So along with a pair of fairly tight fitting breeches I had to get some small clothes to go under them and that’s when I realised something that only the comparison with wandering around with nothing but fresh air round my crotch could demonstrate. Every night I’d take them off and every night they’d be a bit dirty, at the very least sweaty if I’d been working, but usually also some stains from my natural fluids, and even the occasional drip of piss that had missed the sponge. So did I put them back on dirty or did I put a new pair on and start a mass round of washing them out. No I chucked the lot and went back to my jackets and baggy pants.

I also asked around and it as obvious the local women didn’t wear small clothes under their long skirts either. When I mentioned the possibility they all gave me strange looks, why would I want to; so I explained about the ideas of modesty and cleanliness from Westeros and pretty well got laughed at; what was clean about wearing something that was dirty within minutes of putting it on. Of course they didn’t understand why I wanted to wear men’s clothes either but that was something I was used to and compared with their long dresses I’m sure I as right, but the Kyrotome jacket seemed very much the best of both worlds. 

Not that we were immune from occasional bouts of strange fashions in Kyrotome. People would bring clothing back from somewhere else and try and persuade us to wear it so they could make money. I’ve no problem with that, but it was always a flash in the pan and to me a waste. I liked to see my clothes wear out not just be exchanged for a new set for novelty value, but then I realise I’m unusual in that respect. I can remember two that were big things for a while, What you might call exposed stays and what I can only describe as latex clothing.

The stays idea came, but not I might add from me, from the Northwest round Chersky, where they wore them much as we had in Westeros, over a simple shift and then under whatever bodice top went with your dress. So you had a couple of sets, many poorer people manged with one, and they were plain fairly heavy cloth to hold the boning. When they brought them to Kyrotome they were to be worn over just one jacket and made of fancy silks with trimmed edges. Then below you wore a bum pad and what looked like the lower parts of another jacket but was all tied round the waist as a sort of skirt. It aw funny seeing women with boobs a waist and a bum, when the normal effect of jackets was to make everyone look pretty much tube shaped. Inevitably some people tried to make them very tight, but there was no need for that. Having seen my mother and other women putting them on as well as wearing them I became a bit of an instant expert as to how to make them look right but stay comfortable, it’s a not difficult if you know how.

The second fad was for cloth made from fibres woven with a sort of resin called latex, from a special tree sap. It made the threads stretchy so clothing hugged your body, which was fine if you have just the right body, but purgatory if you’re even a little bit too fat. They even tried getting women to wear long pants in it that covered all your legs, but then they needed small clothes under them and in the heat of a Kyrotome summer everyone got a sort of prickly itch that killed the whole idea in less than a week. Needless to say the men didn’t fall for either idea, it does always seem to be women who will put fashion before comfort and practicality.

It was interesting watching Arya in Chersky. She clearly felt she’d ‘come home’ until it became clear that in several ways she hadn’t. I’m from King’s Landing originally so it didn’t mean anything special to me although it did make me think was there any things about King’s Landing I missed and the answer was no, I’d spent too long at sea in other ports to feel anywhere was ‘my sort of place’. The one thing she did like was the fact it was getting cold, she’d clearly missed that so we hung around a week or two until the snow was established so that we could have a snowball fight; something I have to admit was fun and I’d never seen or done before.

There was one other silly thing I had to do. I don’t know why, except it was another game from childhood and for some reason I didn’t want Marcus to watch so I sneaked out one morning as soon as I’d woken up and before he was awake, just in a single quilted jacket and some boots. I walked away for the buildings into a new overnight snowdrift, opened my legs, pulled my flaps aside and peed in the snow. It made a lovely yellow arc in the morning sunshine and by leaning back I made a line at least two feet long. It was a silly game Bran, Rickon and I’d played when we got the direwolf puppies and we watched the dogs cock their legs one snowy morning. Childhood memories, where were they all now. My bladder was empty, the cold was nipping at me and that last thought was going to make me miserable if I pursued it so I went back inside.

I woke up one morning and Arya’d disappeared outside. She came back in and said we were going home. I’d been frozen to the bone for four days so I didn’t argue.


	46. Very Happy Families

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's another strange culture and they're happy because they're sexually satisfied and we discuss this in detail. If you want to remain satisfied in ignorance then move along to chapter 48 please.

It as a year after our mutual confessional and we’d gone North up the East side of the Inland Sea, well North and now we were looking at a very flat landscape in front of us and a set of gates. Behind the gates was a canal, a big artificially dug channel wide enough for about three normal size merchant ships. At the other end of the canal was the Freshwater Sea, pedants will observe that meant it wasn’t a sea at all but that’s what the locals called it so I wasn’t arguing. As usual we were following stories that the people up there were ‘strange’. It gets very cold this far North, we were going to be as far North as Winterfell, but in the winter it gets a lot colder. Marcus said something about warm water currents giving Westeros a less extreme climate. We were playing it safe and arriving in midsummer. As usual I was peddling moon cups and dildo’s from Dodeshi, we’d got jewellery and a lot of fine silk. Very cold in winter, still hot enough in summer to want silk, but the worms wouldn’t live on the local trees. We were expecting to buy furs. It’s surprising given how warm it was down South how well these sold. It was decorative, you didn’t need one but people liked to have them as floor rugs for decoration. I’d made a rule though, bear was acceptable but I wasn’t buying wolf.

We ran alongside a long quay pushing out into the water, the bottom was sandy and shallow, we were clearly in a cleared channel already. I left Arya to work the ship, it wasn’t going to be difficult to tie up. Waiting for us was a train of thirty two oxen, four wide, eight deep. While I paid a passage fee we took a heavy line in through the anchor hawse and turned it round the capstan. The oxen started to plod resolutely forward, the sails were drawing so we were almost overrunning them; then they opened the gate and the current hit us; it was easy to see now how the channel stayed open. We slowed and it was obvious the oxen were doing most of the work but the Kittiwake was lighter and narrower than a normal merchantman so we kept up a decent pace, maybe a couple of knots. As soon as we were through the gates they were shut behind us and the flow was cut. We dropped the sails and came into the bank and cast the oxen loose. While the wind held we’d run upstream, if it dropped there were more relays of oxen to drag us. The first leg was four hundred and fifty mile, then there was a lake for a hundred mile, a second canal for three hundred miles and we were into the Inland sea. To the top of the sea where the best fur trading was was another 900 miles, I was told winds in the canal weren’t that good but once in the Freshwater Sea it would improve, so eight or nine days of plodding through a very flat featureless landscape broken about every fifty miles by another gate to be worked up as the canal rose. None of these rises was more than 2 feet, but two feet of extra digging done by hand was a lot of work so I could see why they did it.

And so it proved, we made the whole northerly journey under sail apart from the gates, but I realised as we passed them that we would need pulling virtually the whole way home, except for the gates when the current would see us through.

Finally we got to a place called Mushu, pretty much at the top of the Freshwater Sea. I’d found it easy to contact a dreamspeaker called Kirima before we even arrived so she was on the dockside when we landed. Her husband Nukilik was a merchant so we offered them the opportunity to act as our agents, which they accepted. As a result we went to their house, pretty much a single room large cabin, to eat. When I say cabin don’t think this was a crude structure, it wasn’t. There was lot of ornamental decoration, the timber was finely cut, but apart from the privy at one end it was a single open space. The other thing I’d noticed was that every house had a small bell on the roof, rung from a string hanging in one corner. A collection of what appeared to be the family came in and we were introduced, on old lady Amka maybe in her mid-sixties, a woman Tapeesa in her forty’s, a younger man Tulok in his thirties, a boy Inuksuk of about thirteen, and a child of maybe four Takamate. I’d noticed that Nukilik was a good bit older than Kirima, he was around his mid-fifties, whereas she was probably no more than twenty five.

As usual we were dealing with the dreamspeaker Arya had made contact with and her family. I’d got used to being the spare body in the conversation although my Trader was improving so nearer Kyrotome where it was commonly spoken I could join in simple conversations, compliment who ever had done the cooking, but up here they didn’t speak much Trader so I was back to getting all my information from Arya. One thing had struck me as a bit odd was the family structure. Nukilik had been introduced as Kirima’s husband, so that made the old lady mother, probably to one of Tapeesa and Tulok, who must be a couple as well. The little one was clearly Kirima’s child, so the boy of thirteen, was presumably Tulok’s. Anyway I gave up thinking about this when the mid-day meal arrived. The food was good, business had been concluded, Tulok would act as our agent for most of the goods the goods we were selling and also collect the best furs for us to take back for a small cut. Then a bell started to ring in the distance and all sorts of Hells broke lose. Someone ran to ring the bell on our roof, Nukilik and Tulok started putting on a layer of leather clothing and were holding very strange head cover masks in their hands. The leather was clearly going to give them total protection for something and there was a large protrusion like a birds beak around the nose and mouth area. I looked at Arya, it was obvious she and Kirima were dreamspeaking then she turned to me

“Marcus, Kirima’s bringing a writing desk you need to write a note to the crew, they must stay on the ship until people come to them. They’re going to be there for two weeks. They’ve more than enough food and wine on-board”.

“What’s going on”.

“Write the note first, Nukilik and Tulok need to get it delivered and back here as soon as possible”.

I did as I was told and they took the parchment from me, donned the strange headgear and went out. I noticed after they’d left the door wasn’t just closed, all the windows were shuttered and cloth used to fill cracks. We were being sealed in for some reason. “Right now can I have an explanation”.

“The bell is the miasma bell, someone had gone down with some sort of local variant of the plague, so to prevent any more transmission than has already occurred we’re all locked in for at least two weeks. The bells have a code, when no house had had an ill person for ten days we’ll all be let out. Until then we’re here with our friends. Nukilik and Tulok will be back as soon as they’ve delivered the message to the Kittiwake. The clothing is to try and stop them getting infected, the nose is stuffed with medicinal herbs so the air they breathe through it is cleaned, they hope”.

“Is this a regular thing”.

“It happens most summers a couple of times, the think it’s hot airs, but it sound more to me like something people pass round, but whichever staying indoors for a couple of weeks is a good way not to get it. They expect it to happen so they’ve plenty of food and drink in”.

“So we all bunk down together and presumably granny goes a bit deaf when mum and dad want to play making a camel”.

“You can say ‘have sex’, they don’t understand a word we’re saying, any more than we can make their language out”.

“Whether it’s have sex, or as you love to put it a good ‘YES, YES! wank’ we’re all going to be doing it in the same room, or not for two weeks”. There was the sort of pause that meant she was dreamspeaking to Kirima. I could imagine the conversation ‘Marcus is a bit shy if he gives himself a hand job one night no one’s going to make a fuss are they’. I didn’t like to think of this in a negative way but you can take a girl out of brothel, but it’s very hard to take the brothel out of the girl. I loved Arya dearly but sometimes, whether it was because I was old or something else she just seemed so open about things I expect to be more discreet about.

I could see him watching me as we dreamspoke; this was going to make his eyes pop out. “Right Marcus it’s a bit more complicated than you think, but also possibly a bit easier unless you want to go and hide in the privy”.

“I noticed she didn’t mention joining me in the privy, so I had to assume she was about to come up with something that my previous wife would probably have described as a ‘depraved orgy’ and say she intended to join in. “Alright then, how is it going to work”.

“Well I’ll start with the family dynamic then move onto the social obligation. What we have before us is a single family, none of whom are related except Kirima and yura, who are obviously mother and child. So from Kirima’s perspective she has a young husband, an old husband, and a very old husband, on older co-wife and a very much older co-wife. Amka has finished her moonbleeds so she’s not really interested in sex anymore and is in charge of birth control, which essentially means when everyone has sex no one penetrates, or gets near penetration”.

“So she walks round and hits you with a big stick if you get over excited and try and go the whole way”.

“Pretty much, yes”.

“And ‘everyone has sex’ means they all do it at the same time so on one gets jealous, or embarrassed by not being involved”.

“You’ve got it”.

“So you and I can have some fun and as long as my performance isn’t deflated by being watched by the old biddy she’ll make sure we keep it to hands and other non-reproductive bits”.

“You’re getting very close”.

This was becoming a game, she knew something more and she was trying to see if I could figure it out, as a test of whether I wasn’t too prudish to think ‘they can’t do that’. “Well obviously there’s three of them so Kirima’s got two men to satisfy, but based on the times I’ve heard you have two goes in fast succession, she can do it that way or make it a threesome”.

“Oh it’s better, or worse than that”.

“Well come on then tell me, you’re obviously keen to make the old man feel out of touch and have decided to go along with whatever it is so spit it out”.

“Social hospitality rules demand that we’re not isolated by all this so for the duration we’re family, the five of us will all pleasure each other; I think in a bit of circle”.

“And you’re happy to have other men pleasuring you”. She might be, but I wasn’t sure I was.

“No and they won’t unless I ask which, possibly to your surprise, I’m not going to. Visiting women always get to arrange the set up so that they are only touched by the man of their choice and I choose you”.

“Well that was nice to know; but doesn’t that break the circle”.

“I said touched by, keep up; yes I have to touch one of the males, and I also get the choice so I’ve chosen Inuksuk. The man I love is going to enjoy himself pleasuring me in ways neither of us normally do, I’m going to have the very simple job of firing off a young lad who probably barely needs touching to explode”

“And someone else is going to be playing with me, who”.

“Relax this family are all man/woman orientated, man/man or woman/woman people form their own groupings so it will be Kirima giving you a hand job. I’ve explained you’ll probably be pretty nervous and she says she won’t do anything more than stroke you to string release”.

“String release”. 

“That’s how it comes out in dreamspeak, I’ve told you it’s a very literal way of communicating, and if you think about it what you shoot out looks like a bit of string if it falls on the ground. Which brings me to the last thing, there’s a bunch of furs kept in cupboard for us to do this on and they don’t fuss about them getting sticky, so feel free to wipe afterwards then we’ll go and sleep on other cleaner furs.”

I could see Kirima looking at me. It wasn’t a nervous look, but it wasn’t excited or possessive either. She realised I was looking and smiled, it seemed like her view was it was something she was going to do while one of her men pleasured her, me instead of the other of her men wasn’t a big deal. Then I remembered Granny on contraceptive patrol. “And what does granny actually do”.

“Nothing much, she’ll sit up one end with the little one, who’ll probably be asleep, but if someone breaks the circle and tries to switch ends, she’ll come and give you a push and tell you to stop. Life’s pretty hard up here in the winter, they can’t afford lots of kids or they‘d just starve and I’ve made it plain I’m as averse to getting pregnant as Kirima is. Don’t look so worried, think of the good side, we can have two weeks of mutual pleasure, don’t you want that”.

I realised I wanted that a lot. “You’re right although it’s not going to make giving it up when we leave easy”.


	47. Our first time together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We did what we talked about in chapter 46 and I'm quite explicit about what we did and how I felt

We’d had dinner and put the little one to bed, then the rugs Arya had mentioned were brought out of a cupboard and spread on the floor. Everyone else started taking their clothes off so I followed suit. I a watching Arya every second of the time, she undid the sash round her waist and pulled the bottoms of the jacket out of her pants, then opened the jacket and there were her breasts, tiny round standing out from her chest, tiny little nipples already erect in the small darker patch of skin. She bent to undo the waist cords on her breeches and they fell forwards just slightly to hang with a round gently curve. Now she was pulling her pants down, exposing a triangle of brown hair. When I’d first seen her on the boat three years ago it had been a patch of light downy hairs, barely visible let alone covering anything, but here she was with curls and a thickness that was a lot more like an adult woman. I was glad of that I didn’t want to feel I was taking a child however willing she might be. My cock obviously didn’t have any qualms either because when I got my pants down it sprang up already firm and hard. I could see she was looking at it, then she looked up at my face with a beaming smile.

“Marcus lay down to one side please, we’re going to get comfy and the rest will fill in the circle round us”.

I did as I was told, lay down and raised my arms. She spread her legs and she climbed over me and put her knees under my armpits. Everything she had to offer was displayed for me and it was glistening with fluid already, there was no question she was aroused, I’d seen her squirm a couple of times during dinner. She’d said to me once before sending me on deck, ‘It gets itchy and you know what it is with an itch you just have to scratch it’. She lowered herself slowly towards my face wriggling her knees about to get in the right position, then her pubic mound touched my upper lip. I stuck my tongue into the slippery wetness and licked.

Gods, I nearly screamed, his tongue touched my pearl and something shot up into my groin as thought he’d stuck a needle in to me. Right up to that second I’d felt quite relaxed and in control. I’d put on a bit of a display as I got undressed so he had something to look at and it had obviously worked because his cock bounced out of his pants. This was the first time I’d seen him erect. We’d given over being bothered if someone caught a glimpse of the other’s body ages ago, but he’d never been more than mildly swollen before, this was different. I must have been really focussed because I noticed it curved ever so slightly to the left and I could see the blood pulsing through a tube up its length. I’d decided I would focus all my attention on Marcus between my legs until I’d finished and then give young Inuksuk the quick finish I was sure he’d achieve. Then Marcus tongue touched me and planning went out of the window.

I realised Inuksuk was in front of me so I got one hand round his cock and cupped his balls in the other. He was only a few year younger than me and his cock was still thinner than the older men’s. I figured just a few movements would keep him hard and if his balls hadn’t started to move up into his body he wasn’t going to shoot. “Aaaah!” shit I hadn’t kept that quiet, Marcus had paused while I moved around then just flicked his tongue once more. The gentle feel of warm and swollen that had hung around my crotch during the meal had already spread as far as my knees and my belly and the tongue flick had stabbed into me again. I clamped my legs round his head and bore down with my hips to try and get more pressure, but he’d taken his tongue away again.

The second flick produced an involuntary yelp and I realised she was a long way towards the edge already so I took my tongue away counted three, then laid in on gently and just swirled it around a bit, pause, three very gently upwards flicks, pause, on the hood and from side to side, pause. She was trying to grind her hips into me to speed things up but all I had to do was move my tongue back and she couldn’t quite drive it herself. I’d lost any interest or real appreciation about what the hand on my cock was doing, I was focussed on giving her the very very best ride I could for her first time and I was quietly confident it was going to plan.

Gods why did he keep stopping the bastard was doing it deliberately to make it last longer. One part of my mind was saying it was good he was making an effort, the bigger part was just screaming get me over the edge I need the release. He paused again and in a moment of lucidity realised my grip on Inuksuk was pretty tight, I tried to relax my hand a bit, he hadn’t gone on the least bit soft, but I didn’t want to hurt him. Oooh!, there was the next little surge, and another pause. Gendry had used his fingers on me to start with; he’d said he wanted make sure I got my enjoyment before he entered me, but he had been intent on getting me there, Marcus on the other hand was clearly intent on keeping me at the tipping point as long as he could, but either he’d had enough or he’d misjudged it because her it came, the warmth had turned into heat and it was all over my body; I felt as though I was flushed beetroot and sweating. Then suddenly everything collapsed into a totally focused stab into my crotch, my legs spasmed and twitched and tried to squash Marcus’ head, I rammed myself down onto his mouth as hard as I could, he flicked his tongue twice more and my whole body shuddered with each flick. Vaguely I could feel something wet and sticky falling on my hand, Inuksuk ballsack was empty they’d shot up into his groin, As the spasms hit me I must have been jerking him off and I’d been right he didn’t need much at his age. I gasped for breath and collapsed.

I was determine to keep her going as long as possible but inevitable I gave one flick too many and she was off, I timed a couple more flicks to the jerking of her body then stopped bothering about her because there was the flooding rushing sensation surging through my crotch and I was pumping what felt like a lifetimes supply of cream out of me. I’d had a hand job on the boat only yesterday but it had been a pale two squirt imitation of what was still pulsing and oozing out of me. Gods that had been good, so good.

I’d collapsed onto Marcus and I just wanted to lay there forever, but I felt I’d barely got my breath back when Amka tapped me on the bum and motioned me to get off him. I rolled into the centre of the circle and felt Kirima take my hand.

“I think that was good wasn’t it”

“That was bloody marvellous”.

“I think we all fed off you, I don’t think you realise how much noise you were making, it was really good we were all in your rhythm. I think it pretty well went round the circle from you to Inuksuk all the way back to your man and boy did he explode; Amka was worried there was so much some of it would get on you, and in an emergency she has a wet flannel and it’s cold which can be a bit of a shock.

I imagined someone trying to clean me down in a hurry with a cold wet flannel, yes that might have ruined the moment just a bit, but I didn’t think it would have made much difference. I’d been blown away by Marcus Stanson and I couldn’t wait to do it again. Wait I had to though apart from Inuksuk, who made it plain by his fresh erection that he was ready for round two everyone else had had enough. I put a finger under Marcus’ prick and tried to tickle him onto life

“I’m sorry girl that old man needs his beauty sleep and so do I”. I could see Inuksuk sat fiddling with a rapidly reviving cock but everyone else was standing up wiping down and heading for the sleeping rugs at either end of the room.

Then the biggest let down of the night, what I really wanted to do was snuggle up to Marcus but we slept in segregated groups so I had to make do with Kirima, who without ever suggesting it had an erotic meaning tucked me into her belly in a spoon position. That just left Inuksuk on the rugs, playing with himself. Just for a second I thought of going over and giving him a hand, literally, but then I thought he can manage and I’m not part of his family I’m with Marcus so I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

All good things have to come to an end and twelve days later they rang the ‘All Clear’. The system was effective, juts two people had died. In a community of several hundred I’ve expected fifty at least. By this time we’d had sex six times, three more copies of the first method and twice went I’d relented to Arya’s request and changed the order so she could pleasure me, while Inuksuk and Kirima kept the circle intact. The second way wasn’t as good and I was glad I got Arya to revert for the last time. I’d long ago realised that I get more pleasure from having a woman reach her peak and explode for me then I do from my own performance, it’s not that I don’t want both, but this confirmed which was the better way round.

I wanted to ask if we could stop there forever, or could they all come sailing with us and we could all go at it on the deck under the stars, but I knew the answer. Gods it was frustrating; there had to be another way because one thing I’d learned on nights four and five was it was very tempting when I neared the peak to do exactly as Marcus had predicted and jump on top of him to go all the way. At one point Amka had gently put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me backwards.

So we said our goodbyes, our trade deals were closed, I’d shown all the women how to use a mooncup and left them with a small supply to hand out to friends as thank you presents. Tulok was a carver and he was producing one out of some sort of bone by the time we left, so I didn’t think I’d sell many more. 

I put a hand up to help Arya onto the deck stepping down from the gangplank. I could see deep disappointment in her eyes. “Don’t be sad it’s over, focus on the fun it was and that we made it happen”.

“That’s easier for you to say, you had thirty years good sex with your wife before you met me. Barring one, I now realise slightly inadequate tumble immediately before a major battle, this has been my sex life to date”. I realised Haerd had walked up behind me and probably overheard that comment.

She blushed bright red, I’d never seen her blush before, Gods I could have laid her on the deck there and then. Easy for me she thought. She had thirty plus years of sex before her. I thought I might manage another ten before it killed me and I wanted desperately to die happy.


	48. Don't drink the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more sexual strange people described in detail, this time they're not on 'our side' so someone gets coerced.

It was about a year after the trip to Mushu; about half past seven in the evening and the sun was just about to go down. We were ghosting past a rather rocky looking island with very little wind on the Northwestern side of the inland sea. I was on watch, Arya was asleep below because she was coming on watch at midnight. Titu was on deck with me. We’d finally persuaded Titu that all ships didn’t sink by coming home successfully several times and she was older now, probably about eight, so Arya had brought her with us. Titu was in one cabin, we were in the other, always one in the cot at once due to the watch rota and the fact we still hadn’t worked out how to have sex and avoid pregnancy.

It was a beautiful evening and we were watching the sun start to set and enjoying the beauty of sailing in fair weather. Sadly the lookout was clearly doing the same because suddenly there was a bump alongside the hull and a bunch of people started coming over the lee rail. Piracy wasn’t a massive problem in the Inland Sea but there were places so there were some weapons on the ship, but not organised and the crew didn’t practice anti-boarding drills so it wasn’t an immediate and organised response. In addition I’m sixty six and I’ve got a small child next to me so my first priority was getting Titu below decks.

I was woken by banging on deck, people shouting and Marcus bringing Titu into the main cabin. By the time I’d got needle in my hand and I’m on deck there’s a couple of outrigger canoes going away from us into the darkness to the East at speed. We’re already losing ground to them, and following means running towards a lee shore in darkness. Marcus is telling people I’m a qualified mate so I’m not going to ruin my reputation and wreck the ship by trying to chase them.

I got back on deck and took stock of what had happened. Not our most glorious ten minutes, because it probably hadn’t even been that long. I checked with the men no one was seriously hurt, they used clubs not edged weapons so some sore heads, an odd potential splinter fracture of the forearm and nothing worse. Except that we were a man missing; Ichada had apparently been bundled into the boat and taken.

I was livid, how had we been caught unawares how come no had really fought back. The man in the crow’s nests got a right royal bollocking and told his future employment was at risk if he didn’t spot anything bigger than a mackerel approaching us. Everyone else went a bit sheepish when asked why they hadn’t got their hands on a weapon sooner. Things were rearranged, but it wasn’t going to get Ichada back, that was going to be down to me.

I didn’t like Arya’s plan and neither did Titu, but it was the only way we were really going to get Ichada back, Arya was going to land on the far side of the island, work her way over to where they lived, find where he was being kept and get him back out. Details to be resolved as and when the problem arose. We were going to get far enough away during daylight that the y wouldn’t want to row out us. “Fine no I don’t have a better plan and yes I know this is what you specialise in, almost”.

“Well almost is a lot better than anyone else can offer. I can only think of one reason to take one sailor, he’s some sort of religious sacrifice so we also probably don’t have much time”.

“But it’s dangerous mum, you said sailing was safe”

“Sailing is safe, this isn’t sailing, this is virtually assassination and that my little one is what mum used to do for many years before I came here and met you”. I could see her bottom lip wobbling, why had it happened on this voyage. I wanted her with us not left at home, however good our housekeeper was, but even if this worked I wasn’t sure she’d come on a voyage again. 

“Yes Titu it’s dangerous but so is your mum. You see nice happy Arya, but this is the other bit of your mum and I’m actually quite bothered about the poor people who she’ll come across. Remember Arya the job is get Ichada back, not wreak vengeance for taking him”.

“I know”. Well it wasn’t worth talking any more I got myself in the gig, the smallest rowing boat on board and set out for land, still vaguely visible even in the dark. It took an hour but the row in was just a process of oar in, oar out. The Inland Sea doesn’t do much in the way of tides or strong currents round shorelines so I bumped the boat up to some rocks, hauled it just above the waterline and flipped it over. From ten yards away it was practically invisible. There’d been no signs of lights or sound of people coming so where ever they lived it was the other side of the island so I set off uphill. It was still quite hot so I stopped at a stream on the way for a drink.

Maybe an hour’s climbing got me to the summit and a good view of the whole place. The far side was flatter and had some forest and also a patch of lights on the edge of the trees that were clearly coming from buildings.

So far the only odd thing or troublesome thing was I’d come across a couple of the local goats in the dark. Normally in those circumstances grass eaters run first, shit second, and think third, but these had stood up to me , the second one so insistently I’d ended up having to grab it’s horns and cast it onto it’s back so I could give it a good kick in the belly to persuade it to run off. What I saw as I cast the goat had me thinking. It was a nanny, it had udders, but it also clearly had a prick. I’d never seen a goat like that before but I’d been told about an animal called the hyena, a pack dog that ran in the far West up to the Dragon mountains, very aggressive, would fight anything males and females alike and the females also had pricks. They didn’t work, they didn’t do anything with them but hanging between their legs there they were. So now I’d met goats that were just the same.

Another hour or so and I was around the edge of the village, they were stopping up late, torches were burning around the houses there was a lot of noise from somewhere in the centre. I didn’t like that, it all spoke of communal ritual. Getting closer confirmed my fears, a lot of women were in the centre of the village in a communal open space. I as working my way carefully past the first few buildings, all of which looked to be unoccupied, doors and windows were open and there was no sign of people left behind inside. I was starting to get a feel for the build of them, they were big solid, a bit like the Nai S but obviously human. They were also running around naked with just a belt with a knife in it so I got my clothes off and started to bulk myself up to look like a local. Then I saw something that made me stop. I’d been about to join the throng when I saw a couple of women come my way. I took a quick look at their groins in case they shaved or decorated themselves in some way. No but I needed to fade into the background for a minute to complete my disguise. Like the goats these women had pricks, not complete ones but there was an acorn and a shaft like a man, no real hood and the whole thing was maybe two inches long, so the acorn end was maybe ten times the size of my pearl but half to a third that of a normal man. For a second I wondered if they were just very poorly endowed men, but they had definite breasts and beneath the mini prick was a normal woman’s lips. After Adventum this was child’s play, but it did take a bit of time. The crowd was big enough I figured everyone couldn’t know everyone and the torchlight made details flicker to make mixing in easier.

I came out of the dark round the houses and into the light and just joined in, steadily I worked my way to though the crowd to the front. No one challenged me or tried to speak to me. The further I went the more competitive it got, women were starting to push and shove and minor fights were breaking out. Apart from one judicious elbow to a mini-prick that provided a satisfying yelp and bent the owner double I just moved carefully, a gap her, go with the flow there and then I was on the edge of the crowd. What I saw was the last thing I expected. Ichade was tied to a grating much as you’d get on the deck of a ship, his pants were gone and two women were gently massaging his balls and tickling his cock.

It took them a while but they got him up and then one went onto her back and he was literally lowered onto her. Five or six minutes later there was a big cheer, he appeared to have delivered his load. He was lifted away, the woman on the ground lay still and was clearly stoppering herself with cloth. They moved him well away maybe thirty feet and stood him back up. A couple more women set about getting him upright again. I got out of there, there was nothing I could do with him tied up and so many people around and at least at present he didn’t seem to be in danger of much but soreness and exhaustion.

About an hour and a half later they’d obviously worn him out and everyone started heading home. One woman was carried past me by a group of others who were holding her level while she had a rag stuffed between her legs. Well it was obvious what they wanted him for. She must have been the last recipient being carried home so as not to waste what she’d obtained. It didn’t take long for the place to go very quiet and very dark. Where had they taken Ichade. Yes, there he was in a simple cage by the side of the square. He was drinking heavily from a jug next to him but otherwise looked unharmed. He put the jug down and tried to arrange himself for sleep. I’d seen enough, he wasn’t under guard, so I slipped out and worked my way behind him. When I tapped him on the shoulder he nearly started to shout but I got my hand over his mouth “Ichada it’s Arya, shut up”. He did as he was told “Now quietly, can you walk”

“Yes miss”. 

So I cut through the lashing round his wrist and ankles, took a last look round, no sign of anyone and we were away. Shortest route to the darkness took us towards the beach, I could hear the waves on the shore. I kept going and sure enough when we got there, there were the two canoes. I got one into the water and Ichada got in, then I got the other one in and lashed them together. We wouldn’t be going that fast but this way there was no pursuit. Three hours later, dawn was breaking and we were off the far end of the island. We worked out way into the shoreline and I got the gig back into the water and tied up behind the second canoe.

As soon as it’d got light I made use of the land breeze to take us towards the shore and there she was paddling a canoe with Ichada in the back. My only thought was why had she got him hog tied. I discovered that when she got back. In the process of paddling back he’d tried to molest her, never a good move, which had earned him a sore head from a paddle blow and the ignominy of coming aboard by being lifted up by his crewmates. Then Arya did something very strange she had him tied to the mast and proceeded to force about two pints of water down his throat.

“Keep him there until I say otherwise and keep making him drink, let him piss on the deck. I want as much fluid though him as possible”.

And so the poor lad stayed there until she’d been to bed and had some sleep. She was also drinking heavily. She walked over to him

“Ichada, have you calmed down”.

“I think so miss, I’m really sorry, I don’t know why I did that”.

“I think I do. You drank a load of water just before we set off for the boat and so did I and then you felt very aggressive and despite what had happened overnight you got a boner and fancied using it on me”.

“Yes miss, I’m so sorry”

“Forget it. It’s in the water, I don’t know what or how, but it makes the women look like they do. It makes people feel aggressive and horny and it may even explain why their male children turn on each other aged five or six and fight to the death”. What I didn’t tell him was it had made me feel first like screwing him, then like killing him. I’d come so close to bringing back a corpse it had scared me.

Arya insisted we drop the canoes where they’d drift back to the island. She said the women couldn’t help what they were and she couldn’t think of a way to solve the problem so she didn’t see the need to be vindictive. We marked our charts and warned any and all the skippers we met as we sailed toward Kyrotome. Titu calmed down quite quickly once Arya was back unharmed and we made our way home.

He never said anything and he never made any note so maybe he didn’t notice, but for three or four days on the way home I grew just the tiniest of moustaches. Nothing more than what the crew would have called bum-fluff on a young boy, but I could feel it as well as see it. I don’t know what was in the water, how it got there, how it worked or anything about it but I knew I felt very sorry for the poor women; in some way permanently exposed to essence of maleness.


	49. I'll never look at an Octopus the same way again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I come up with a novel variant of an age old solution to our big problem and I'll happily tell you in detail how good solving it was. This chapter could be called 'The honeymoon part 1'

It was five years after we’d arrived in the Dragon lands. Arya having finally been honest with me about her age was rising 19 and getting very angry very easily that it was two years since we’d had sex together up with the Kiritini by the Freshwater Sea. 

Marcus always said you can never have too much foreplay; I disagree, there were times when I just had to pin him to the bed/floor and get to the summit, or explode or go over the waterfall, whatever expression you use for that moment when the world disappears and you pull that really strange facial expression like you’re in pain and your body judders and you gasp for breath. You know the sort of thing, or if this is your first sneaky read of a book with explicit sex in it then you soon will. Anyway I was tired of the masturbatory foreplay. We’d done a few kinky things, him tying me down and us both watching each other deal with ourselves, he was right he could control himself, I knew I couldn’t. But it was all getting too much; I was getting to the point of going ‘fuck me and be damned with the consequences’. Then one night Peachbum said something to me about cooking seafood and an idea formed in my head. Just to clarify I’d been experimenting and found that my capacity to warg/dreamspeak was improving and increasing with practice. I could get back to Westeros nine thousand miles away to Nymeria when it suited me and make contact with Peachbum from nearly four and a half thousand miles away as long as she was dozing or asleep.

We’d gone back to Megalo Limani at Arya’s request, passing Piot on the way. Gods the Kittiwake was fast and a joy to sail. Arya had warned me we weren’t going straight back home and we’d been in harbour for a couple of days and I’d hardly seen her. I was assuming she was off with her pal Peachbum. Despite the disparity in age, Peachbum was 40, the equivalent of my age maybe a bit more the two of them behaved like schoolgirls. Holding hands and dreamspeaking, giggling running in and out of our house, back to Peachbum’s, back to ours. This time it was accompanied by looks in my direction. I didn’t what they were up to but they clearly had a plan.

Then she was back, she shut the door behind her so I assumed we were on our own for the rest of the night. She’d been out in her ‘local girl’ persona so she was naked but pretty androgynous in her brown hair. I was happy with her that way. Since we’d discussed consequences she was flirting with me a lot more and sometimes it was hard to resist, she was young, she was by far the most attractive woman I’d ever seen and she wanted to in her own words “screw the living daylights out of you”. Who wouldn’t want to oblige her and I wasn’t getting any younger, why waste the time. But I knew why she wasn’t ready to give up her freedom for children yet. We’d made voyages around most of the Eastern Islands and into several southern parts of the Inland seas, which if the maps I’d been given were accurate was about a quarter of the Dragon Lands.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare vacantly at me”.

“I’m sorry my mind was drifting”, I looked straight in her eyes and realised something was about to happen. I’d seen this look before, focussed, a couple of times I’d wished I hadn’t as it came with her drawing her knife and preparing to kill somebody.

“Again, Megalo Limani to the Wall, is there anyone there”.

I stepped up close to her “Yes I’m here, really here”.

“Good then close our eyes and take down your pants”.

“Pardon”.

“You heard me, trust remember, you’ve laid it on pretty thick over the years about how I have to learn to trust. Well now I’m trusting you to do as your told and you’re trusting me not to cut your cock off; pants down”.

O trust well she was right. I undid my belt and let my pants drop to the floor. In warm climates I favoured loose breeches and nothing else and I’d taken my shirt off as soon as I was inside. A hand grasped me gently just below the waist. The response was satisfyingly rapid, there was life in the old dog yet. There was a gentle tugging and I realised I was meant to walk after her so I did. I could just smell vinegar, nothing brutal but definitely there. Then something damp and slightly cold touched the end of my member and slid down it. The sensation was quite realistically like a woman, but the cold made it obvious she had fitted something onto my, by now serious rigid, member. This was obviously meant to be some sort of present a nice substitute for the real thing. I was being massaged very pleasantly in a relaxed sort of way. “I thought we’d agreed things had to be two way and with no risks”.

“Take a look”.

I opened my eyes and looked down to find an octopus tentacle in her hand. Ah this was all the sneaky looks. “So the plan is, because you’ve obviously got one”.

The plan is that this is a completely water proof item with no holes in it. Pickled octopus, a large tentacle very carefully selected by Peachbum for me after a period of checking the fishmarket daily, pickled in a mixture of vinegar and spirit and kept for me until I got home.

“So Peachbum knows all about this”.

“It was sort of her idea as much as mine, so as I was explaining; very carefully hollowed out of the meat and cartiledge and rolled inside out, then rolled back onto one of her largest dildos. Did you know she has some that are impossibly large for the size of Big Balls. I don’t know if he knows she has them or not”.

“Her ministrations were beginning to have an effect “You need to slow your hands down or speed your mouth up or I’m going to get to the ‘not really listening phase’”. She held her hand still.

“Sorry shouldn’t have changed the subject. Having obtained something the right size and shape we’ve tested it thoroughly to demonstrate its waterproof. So the final trial is to ensure nothing gets back out immediately after you shoot your load inside it”. I could feel his testicles starting to rise out of my other hand and his breath was starting to come in deep grunting gasps.

I heard something about final trial and then realised I’d left it too late to change my mind. My knees buckled a bit and surge of pleasure passed through me and surge of fluid passed out of me. I was on my knees gasping as Arya vigorously massaged all she could out of me. “Enough”, it almost came out as a squeak. She pulled me down onto the floor next to her and rolled me onto my back.

I was supposed to be conducting a serious test here but it was difficult to remain totally detached as I felt Marcus twitching and shooting and so obviously enjoying the sensation immensely. I cuddled up next to him but also took a good look at the open end into which he was inserted. Nothing had come out. Why should it, an octopus’ skin was after all watertight, but more to the point nothing had squirted back out onto his belly so it was fitted tightly enough. However Marcus was as he often reminded me well over sixty and his prick was softening and shrinking rapidly. The sheath contracted slightly, but quite soon it was clearly loose and going to come off. A creamy white dribble escaped as a limp dick slipped out. Clearly if I was going to use this it had to be removed pretty quickly afterwards.

She was cuddled up under my right arm, I hadn’t felt so content for years. She was fiddling with the sheath, but I left her to it. I assumed I knew where this was going next and if it was her plan to carry out the next round tonight I was going to need some rest so I closed my eyes and relaxed.

Typical he was off to sleep. Still he had told me I’d have pace myself with an old man. The trouble was the pace I wanted to set at this moment was bloody fast and vigorous. I began to understand why he was worried I’d lose control if we’d tried to play my turn, your turn. I’d taken the precaution of staying in Nai S body form because I knew he didn’t really find it attractive so since he’d got his eyes closed I relaxed and let myself slip back into my normal body then got up and took the sheath out to wash it thoroughly.

Bugger I’d slipped off to sleep. Arya, and it was clearly my Arya now not the hairy substitute, was snuggled up alongside me and she’d thrown a couple of hides over us. I couldn’t feel the sheath thing anywhere but she was breathing deeply and was clearly asleep herself. That was mildly disappointing there was bit of me that was still only sixteen and randy and that bit was thinking about what we might be doing next. I reminded the sixteen year old about the sixty year old’s need for sleep and closed my eyes again.

I woke up in the morning with a hand gently grasping me.

“Good you’re awake”.

“Yes and the first thing a man of my age does when he wakes up is takes a pee, so let go and I’ll be back as quick as I can”. She relinquished her grasp and I walked out and round to privy. It was however difficult, my mind was on what we were going to do next and pointing myself downwards to hit the hole wasn’t easy. If the winds from the North West at four knots and currents going East at three, ah that was better. I shook the last drop off the end and got back into our room as fast as possible.

I asked the gods if he was going to take all day and lazily rubbed my crotch while I was waiting. By the time he came back I was seriously aroused and just rolled over and shoved my bum in the air towards him.

“Is that how you really want the first one to go, and I’m assuming you’re expecting me to aim low here”.

“I thought this was how most of the men did it in Westeros, same way as the stallions and the bulls and the dogs and it’s been made plain to me the Nai S”.

“Only if they don’t care whether the woman enjoys it or not; Think about it Arya, where do you touch to enjoy yourself”.

I rolled onto my back and spread my legs to show him. Had I got it all wrong already. It couldn’t be that bad his cock was stuck up like a yardarm.

“Exactly so if I come into you from behind, the only thing touching you there will be the breeze. Is that how the other man did it”.

“Gendry, he spent a long time touching me first and then he had his hand round my waist and kept rubbing me”.

“Well we’re going to try something different, now where’s your device”. I looked around and saw it sitting next to the bed in a jar with the lid off. I lifted it carefully out of the liquid and tried to fit it on. The sight of Arya’s spread legs meant there was plenty for it to cover but it didn’t seem to just want to let me slide in, it was too tight.

I closed my eyes and fingered myself waiting to feel something really good push inside me, but when nothing materialised I looked up. He was stood there with a satisfyingly large erection struggling to get the sheath over it. Now I was glad Peachbum and I had had played with using her dildo to work out how it would go on.

I was about reaching swearing point when she took it off me and rolled it backwards with her fingers, then put the roll on the tip of my member and rolled it down the length.

“There you go, now get down here and get in before it’s too late”.

I didn’t wait to be asked twice. It had a been a long time since I’d been inside a woman, even if I was inside an octopus first, it was good, she wrapped her legs round my back and I made sure I was fully inside so her mound was hard against my hip bones, “Now move your hips up and down; that’s right, does that feel good”.

He was quite gentle, he felt for the place to put his cock and pushed it inside quite slowly. I’m glad he did, I’d seen him on the ship a couple of times, maybe not entirely accidentally; a girl’s entitled to a bit of something to titillate her before a hand job and realised he was a bit bigger than Gendry, definitely longer and probably thicker too. So when he started to push it in I did gasp a little, it felt a lot bigger than Gendry. I was wondering if I could cope with it when I remembered my mother’s comment to Sansa once on the subject of the size of men’s pricks ‘Once you’ve had a baby come out you’ll never bother how big a man is again’. He seemed to have reached his limit; I could feel his belly pushing against me, against my pearl. I got my legs round his back and started to work my hips against him like he said. “Mmm mmm mm” that felt very good indeed.

She flexed her hips a bit faster she was clearly getting what she wanted so I let her get on with it. The skin wasn’t that thick but it was there and it was damping down the sensations I was getting, which was good because since she’d let me have my release last night I felt she was entitled to hers and I wasn’t sure how fast she’d be or how well I could hold out. I thought I’d add a bit of extra for her and leaned my head forward.

Oh that was nice, he was very gently nibbling the lobe of my ear; that was very pleasantly different. Yes it was coming, faster, harder, faster, my mind went pretty blank and. “Aiiiii!”.

I felt her go rigid and realised she gone over the edge, briefly the thought occurred ‘does she always scream’ but I wasn’t into thinking at this point, my arse started to bounce up and down on her and it didn’t take more than a dozen thrusts before I was filling the sheath with fluid and gasping for breath. 

My body was shuddering I was there and he was still speeding up, it was almost too much. Then he too came to a stop for a second, shuddered, then made half a dozen more leisurely shoves. I could imagine the cream spurting out of him, it was a shame I couldn’t feel it but that was a small thing. He lowered himself off his elbows and twisted to lie largely beside me. Just for a second I wondered if I’d actually given him a heart attack, he was breathing very heavily.

I slumped own alongside her, we kissed briefly as my breath as till coming in pants, “That has to be the best I’ve had for 30 years”.

Well he was still talking so he was fine. I suddenly remembered the sheath. “Out you come”. I took hold of the end round his cock and slid my body upwards so he came out of me. Probably none too soon he was already going soft. “Take it off and put it in the pot”.

Well that sort of killed the moment a bit, but she was right I needed to keep the contents of the sheath away from her. I put the sheath into a bowl she’d put out and used a cloth to wipe myself down, then just to be sure I pulled my pants back on and snuggle back down beside her.

All I wanted to do was hold him and he seemed to take an age fiddling about but eventually he came back and lay down next to me. I put my head on his chest, I could hear and feel his heart, it was still beating quite strongly although not that quickly. His breath was slow and deep and realised if I didn’t say something he’d probably go to sleep again. I’d teased him about how easily he slept at any time of the day and he’d always said it was one of the privileges of being old. “So I’m glad you enjoyed it and our little sea-friend did his job so I think we can really start to enjoy ourselves from here on”.

“Yes I think you’ve found the best answer there might be. It isn’t fool proof though. I don’t want to spoil a beautiful moment but at some point we’ll make a mistake it will slip or split or something and you’ll be spending a nervous few weeks eating well to make sure you bleed”.

“You’re right you’re spoiling things, we can discus that later. For now I want to know if it felt good, if I did things the right way for you. I was nervous with Gendry I let him pretty well do things to me. I don’t want to be like that with you I want to give you pleasure. I know some girls say it’s easy all a man wants is you to let them get on with it, but I think there’s more to it than that; it’s just I’m not really sure what”.

Well that was an interesting observation from a girl who’d lived in a brothel, but I had told her brothel sex was a lot of faking by the women so I suppose she’d taken me at my word. “What you did was more than enough to satisfy me for a long time, but yes there are lots of things we can do to get to the same end result in different ways. There are things I can show you and there will be things we can just try even though we’re not sure whether it will work. I love you Arya, you don’t have to perform for me to keep that love”. 

I wanted to burst, I’d spent years being ridiculed, put down and abused for what I was and for no reason at all and he just kept saying things like that. I cuddled him a bit closer my legs wrapped round him, his hip was just in the right place between my legs, the itch was still there, I flexed my hips to just give it a little more pressure.

I felt her start to hump my hip bone. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to manage to perform this fast again; but maybe I could show her something she hadn’t seen in a brothel.

He disengaged from me. Gods don’t go now that was just getting interesting again. Then he rolled me on to my back and kissed my mouth, then my left nipple and then he put his head between my legs. I felt the tickle of his beard on my thighs and then my hips jumped as his tongue rubbed across my pearl. The next few minutes felt like an eternity I never wanted to end, I could feel my arse rising off the bed as my hips bucked, I never realised how rough a tongue is, it was almost painful, yes here came the eruption and I was going to scream again.

That’d been tricky she’d bounced up and down so much I’d struggled to stay in contact and was she noisy. I thought back to a comment by an older man when I was young, ‘Never bother about a screamer, it’s the ones that claw your back that can be a problem’, but Arya didn’t have fashionable long nails so that wasn’t a worry. She rolled over onto her belly and propped her chin on her hands.

“Do you want breakfast before we do it again”.

“I think it might be a good idea, it looks like I’m going to need the energy”.


	50. We start a trend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The honeymoon chapter 2; no I'm no more coy than I was last chapter. If you want to skip on we do also pass out knowledge on to the Nai S

We got a bit silly, we’d both waited for so long and we didn’t want to stop. We got a message to the first mate, told him to go round the islands and do some local trading, not rush let the crew have a bit of time in each port and that left us alone. I showed him every position and trick I’d seen in the brothel. He showed me things no man in a brothel would bother with, how to make it take longer, feel better. He quickly decided that the sheath had to be worn with the little suckers on top of his dick so they rubbed that part inside me. That was wild but frightening, as I got to the peak I felt like I was going to piss on him. I told him afterwards, he said if it felt good I should let it happen. So the next time I went and had a pee before we started and he fingered me inside in the same place for a few minutes before he pushed into me. I was really disappointed, it was good but it didn’t happen again. We finally had to stop because I’d rubbed myself raw, it stung like crazy when I went to pee. So we spent a day just lounging around, me with nothing on below the waist letting things air. Even then we spent most of the time talking about sex. I realised he was right, brothel sex was all about getting the man to shoot his load as fast as possible so a girl could move onto the next man and doing it like an animal meant the girl wasn’t getting excited so she could just get on with the job. I asked him “So doing it like a dog is good for you”.

“Yes, I can either keep rubbing my acorn rim on your sheath entrance or I can go really deep and then there’s a bulge inside you that rubs the really sensitive bit under the acorn bottom so it’s definitely good for me”.

Sometimes strange thoughts pop into my head, did my parents ever have this conversation. No don’t go there. “You seem to know a lot more than most men. I suppose it’s like everything else you’re going to tell me you just want the answers to questions”.

“No I’m going to tell you I’m just a very randy old man”. 

In the middle of the afternoon Peachbum came round. She’d seen Marcus outside and concluded she would be disturbing us if she came in. I couldn’t help myself I grabbed her hand and told her everything that had happened, every detail of what he’d done and what it had felt like and like a real best friend she just went ‘good’, and ‘great’, and ‘really’ and let me get right to the end without interrupting and then she just said

“I’m really pleased you’ve enjoyed yourself. We’ve just got to cross our fingers you bleed on time before we all go into purdah for our fertile period”.

That confused me, “Why is my not being pregnant important to you” I realised it was something I should have thought about but hadn’t, but why Peachbum.

“Because I told Balls about what you’re doing. I know I agreed not to but he was just going to come round and barge in on you unless I explained why not”.

I don’t know why I’d gone all shy on my upcoming mating session, but my relationship with Bigballs was complicated and I just wanted something to be private between me and Marcus; still it wasn’t the biggest thing and yes his arrival two days ago would have been unwanted. “Fine it doesn’t really matter, but that still doesn’t explain why my next moonbleed is important to him, does he want me pregnant or not”.

“Oh not most definitely not. You see he’s planning to use a sheath himself, he wants us all to stay at home and him to have sex with all eight of us, ‘like Grandad used to’ as he puts it; using the sheath so none of us gets pregnant, well unless Moonface swells for her first time in which case she’ll get first turn and with no protection until she’s properly fertilised”.

“And my role in this”, just for a second I wondered if I was going to get an invite.

“You’re the test subject, I have to assure him that you’ve had several days with lots of sex, Marcus has produced a lot of cream inside you and then you’ve bled to show it all worked. Well you’ve given me enough detail to prove the first two points, so I just need to see a full mooncup to know you’ve made it work”.

“Well it’s probably due in about three or four days so I’ll let you know. Just out of interest is this just BigBalls or are Silver and Brains in on it too”. Was I some sort of social experiment for the whole town, was everyone going to be walking behind me for the next few days going ‘Nothing yet’.

“They know what he’s planning to try and brains has either worked out where he got the idea or more likely Silky has told him, because I discussed it with her when we were picking your sheath. Sorry I should have membered you’re a more private person than us. In the end most of town probably does know somethings happening, the three families and few other close relations know what, but it’s only Balls who’s going to try it out before anyone else does, then if it goes wrong it’s only seven extra children not a couple of thousand”.

So I was right this was going to be the most waited for moonbleed in history. “How big a thing will this be if it works”.

“Massive, if we were like your people and put up statues you’re in line for one so big it can be seen ten miles out to sea. Most females go several years without sex with anything more loving than a large piece of carved wood or animal horn. It’s not natural and if we can go back to the old ways a lot of people are going to be very grateful not least me”.

“What happens if you have to go into purdah before I bleed”.

“There’s always next year. I’m a lot more worried you won’t bleed at all, firstly for all of us, but also I know how much not having babies means to your life, I don’t understand it, but I know it matters to you so it matters to me”.

I didn’t know what to say, so many different emotions were churning around in my belly so I just hugged Peachbum, something she willingly reciprocated.

I came back to the house to find Rodakino and Arya locked in each other’s arms. I was pretty sure by now my performance had been discussed and dissected but I didn’t really care, life was being too good to me to get upset over trifles. Then they told me about the bigger picture, that all of town knew we were having sex and were now waiting to see if I’d got her pregnant. That felt just a bit too intrusive but Arya calmed me down by pointing out that it also meant the whole town believed that without the sheath there was no chance I wouldn’t have finished the job. Something’s can just make an old man feel too smug to care.

I bled, just in time, it felt really strange running over to Peachbum to go into her room and show her the part full mooncup and see her virtually jump up and down with pleasure. Just for a second I thought she’d drag me out for everyone to have a look, but no she just went round to tell them all. I could see I was just in time, swollen bums everywhere, I think I could even pick up the slightly earthy musk smell. Bigballs lead me out of the house as everyone else clustered round Moonface, who was proudly wiggling her newly swollen bum for inspection. As he gently pushed me out of the door he was about to lock he said “Evens”.


	51. Titu grows up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Children keep doing this; and when they do their parents should discuss how to talk about sex to them and then have the discussion with them. 

“I think you need to have a talk with Titu; you know the one that doesn’t mention birds or bees, but knowing you will mention how not to get pregnant while enjoying what I’m sure you’ll loving describe as ‘a good shag’”.

“Why should it be me, why not you”.

“I can if you want, but she knows I’m not her biological father, I think she might find it uncomfortable when I get to the bits about sexual pleasure. I don’t want her thinking I’m interested in her”.

“Why shouldn’t you be interested in her, you’re not related, I’ve never said you have to stay with me exclusively”.

“I’m nearly seventy Arya, I have enough trouble keeping it up to satisfy you, besides that would be two of you needing a younger man when I’m gone”.

“Don’t say that Marcus, don’t talk about it”.

“It won’t make it go away”.

“No but it helps me ignore it if we don’t discuss it. It’s like my saggy boobs if I don’t look down they’re not there, they’re still the perky little ones I had when you first met me”.

“They’re still perky now; when I first met you they weren’t perky they were damn near non-existent. When I discovered you weren’t bleeding regularly I realised you weren’t half as old as you made out. If you’d given me an octopus sheath and offered I’m pretty sure I’d have said no because I thought you were too young; but we’re getting off the subject, Titu and sex”.

“Well she’s not as innocent as you might think; she’s been watching us for a couple of months”.

“What”.

“Yes I can hear her sneaking up to the room curtain most nights, to check if we’re doing it. You remember I moved you round last night; that was so she could get a better look”.

Was that something I was going to have to not think about next time or not, gods Arya never made my life easy, interesting but not easy. “So you’re going for the Nai S approach, no shame, no modesty”.

“But most importantly no ignorance”.

“What if she has questions”.

“You underestimate yourself, if there’s one thing you’ve taught her it’s that ‘the most stupid question is the one you don’t ask’, it’s practically her religious mantra”.

“I’m now going to sound like a confused old man; it wasn’t like this in my day”.

“Yes and no, there’s so much more countryside and nature around in Westeros. I remember my father taking Sansa and I to watch his stallion mount a couple of mares to make sure we realised that what he was doing produced babies. That said so much about the two of us, we’d already worked it out, but she had to play the blushing innocent; I just said I trusted men were smaller than the stallions or it would pop out of the top of my head. That made him laugh, it was easy to make him laugh; but here we live in such a big city we don’t see animals unless we go and look for them. You’re right though I wouldn’t have thought of peeking at mum and dad and if I’d got caught doing it I’m pretty sure mum would have told me off, but then there’s no way we’d have had communal privies in rows either so a lot is different over here. I still think we’ve all got it wrong and the people in Mushu have got it right”.

“Remind me, Mushu, my memories not what it was”.

Up in the north, the Freshwater Sea, where it gets bloody cold for months in the winter and they all live in a one room cabin”.

“The, my old wife, my young wife, my just past puberty wife lot”.

“That’s them, thought you were being really unfair not having the whole family on the boat, hogging the very young wife. It seemed to work fine, a child is about to reach puberty and they move in with another family whose youngest member is in their early twenties, the ideal gap was ten years wasn’t it”.

“Sounds about right”. Details like that were slipping away. “The point was that the older or even very much older one taught them, just as when the next youngster turned up they’d do the teaching”.

“Exactly, I also liked the way a woman who stopped bleeding could opt out of sex altogether and the older males weren’t left frustrated and playing with themselves because the younger women would share them out. But after all that togetherness they were the only place where the privies were single seaters”. 

“It’s funny what people do and don’t do and consider ‘normal’”.

“I remember you telling me on the first day that we might meet mermaids. We never did, not with tails, but there’s been plenty of other variations. We’ve always talked about them at home as well so she’s have heard about it and when go back to see the Nai S later his year she’ll learn a lot more because we’re stopping right up to fertile season”. 

“True, and the business we do with Dodeshi means she knows what a moonbleed and a mooncup are about. I still think a few words about the dangers of men might be in order, how not everyone’s as gentle and in tune with a woman’s feeling as I am”.

I hit him, gently; but he was right, if she was watching him she’d see the good side of sex, she needed to understand there could be a bad side. “That’s the talk I really don’t want to do, you know my past I don’t want to frighten her, go over the top, that’s the bit of sex I’m still really not comfortable talking about”.

Which was how a couple of days later I ended up sitting down with Titu to explain that not everyone asks nicely when they want sex with you and about avoiding risky situations, but that if it ever happened to her she was to tell Arya who would teach whoever it was the error of their ways.

It was a good job we’d got round to the subject of sex because it was only a month or two later that Titu waved a half full mooncup at me in the privy.

“Marcus, I’ve flowered”.

“Congratulations, so is our big grown up girl all right, cramps, feeling emotional”

“A bit of a cramping feeling, nothing I can’t live with”.

I wondered how Arya would take to her adopted daughter flowering at the age of about eleven given how much older she’d been, but Titu was a big girl, nearly my height, developing breasts and growing pubic hair so it wasn’t really a surprise. I knew it was really superfluous but I felt I had to say it, “Good, and remember from now on no man gets close to between your legs”.

“Aye aye Captain”.

“Very funny”.

I walked in on them, Titu, with one leg cocked and pushing a mooncup into her sheath, Marcus tucking himself away having obviously just emptied his bladder. So different from my childhood, but I couldn’t help feeling so much better for Titu. Her next comment though surprised me.

“Mum, Marcus, now you’re both here, I’ve got a big girl question to ask and I want you to remember the stupid question rule”.

Marcus looked at me with a ‘what’s coming now’ expression “Go on darling, what is it”

“Well I know I’m not safe with a normal man but if I asked Haerd nicely do you think he would ‘show me the ropes’ so to speak, just two or three times so I know what it all feels like”.

“No bloody way you fool, what do you think makes Haerd special”. I suddenly realised they were both looking at me slightly oddly. It was Marcus that spoke

“Have you really not found out about Haerd”, surely she’d overheard a conversation at some point.

“All I know about Haerd is that he’s an inveterate ladies’ man almost certainly with a clutch of children in Kyrotome, a dozen back in Westeros and more scattered round the Inland Sea”. As soon as I’d said it Titu started to giggle, I’d clearly missed out on something that she knew all about.

“Mum the reason Haerd’s so popular with women is he can’t make babies, haven’t you noticed there’s no balls in the sack”.

The short answer was no I’d never looked at Haerd’s wedding tackle in detail. He was a bit too tempting and I was Marcus’ woman. Titu had obviously not felt so constrained if he came round to visit. I looked at Marcus.

She gave me the evil eye, I’d no idea Titu knew. I did, I’d been with him when the stampeding horses had come down the dockside, knocked him over and one had quite literally stepped on and crushed his balls. I’d gone into the dock, but he’d fancied his chances of stopping them and paid the price. It finished his marriage, which had seriously upset him, but it did provide an opportunity that he had exploited ever since. Just at this moment however it wasn’t my biggest worry. “Titu I know that in theory you’re now a grown woman but I think it would be a good idea to wait until you’re a bit older. I think if you enjoy Heard, and I’m sure you will, you’ll want to keep going and he won’t let you so then you’ll get tempted to try some other boy and take chances. You may decide you’ve met the right man and want to have children sooner than Arya but I think it’s best to stick to amusing yourself until then”.

“Mum’s right Marcus it’s irritating when you’re so sensible and right”.

“Well I’ll live with it”.

I felt completely left out of this conversation, Titu’s knowledge of Haerd, the easy way she gave in to Marcus because he was being sensible; I was sure she’d had managed to turn that into an argument with me. It must all have been written on my face because she came over and hugged me.

“Relax mum, I’ll tell you what, for now I’ll promise no babies before you do, but if I get to twenty and you still haven’t had one then you’re on your own”.

A mental image of a pregnant Titu flashed before my eyes; was this what Marcus called ‘the inevitable steps of aging’, when your kids start doing the things you can’t do any more. Well no because I could very easily get pregnant, I just didn’t want to, but somehow the idea she might do it first made me feel old. 


	52. No body's normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows on from Chapter 52.

Titu came home one afternoon not long after and it was obvious she was upset, she tried to avoid me coming and went straight to her room. That was good enough for me to know something was wrong, Titu was a chatterer; normally she came home and it ‘Marcus guess what’ and then the tale of her day. Arya was out so I went after her. “Titu, I know something’s upsetting you so can I come in and we talk about it”.

“No it’s stupid, I’m being silly”.

This was followed by a hicuppy sob so I remained unconvinced. “Nothing that upsets you is silly Titu, come on I’ve got a question and you know the rule about questions”.

“I’ve told you the answer, I’m upset but it’s silly so I don’t want to talk about it”.

“Is it going to be something to talk over with mum”. There was a very definite pause, I was pretty sure that she was thinking through the conversation with Arya and mentally comparing it to the conversation with me.

“All right, you’re right, this one’s for you because mum will focus on people being nasty to me and you’ll focus on the answer I want. Come in”.

So I did, she was curled up on the bed in a tight little ball. “Do you a want cuddle for starters, however silly it is you’re clearly not very happy”. There was another pause, which made me realise this was serious; unlike Arya for whom cuddling was the prelude to sex or not to be bothered with, Titu would normally snuggle up to me at the least provocation.

“No because I’m feeling very confused and I’m not sure if it would feel right any more”.

Woa, that was fairly clear, Marcus don’t touch. I sat on the hedge of the bed “Fine let’s do some talking then. Now normally when you come home I have to guess what happened so in the general sense I guess someone’s been nasty to you, and since you were at Taradachi’s villa with his kids I have to assume it’s one of them”.

“No it was Hokoumi, Tedemada’s daughter”.

Well that was a start and it was also pretty solid clue. Hokoumi was, at least in her own mind, the alpha female of the girl group and Titu was who she undoubtedly saw as her main competition. “So this was Hokoumi trying to put you down was it”. There was a sniff which I took to be a yes. “you know how competitive your mum is, well Hokoumi is very competitive about being the girl the boys all want isn’t she and let’s be honest she doesn’t fight fair so” I got cut off.

“It’s true though, what she said, it was obviously true. I could see it in everyone’s faces, the rest didn’t want to say it, but I could see in their eyes”.

“How many ‘the rest’ are we talking about here”

“There must have been ten or twelve of us, pretty well every girl I know, that’s what makes it so bad”.

“So just for once you’re the loser in the competition of ‘chase the big boy’ that you youngsters are playing until your father’s let you get married. You’ve won a lot of rounds so far, one loss isn’t going to kill you”.

“Of course it’s not going to kill me, but it really might affect who wants to marry me”.

“Well then you need to tell me what your problem is, forget the other girls, if you think you have a problem I need to know what it is so I can help”.

“But no one can help it’s how I am, I’m not like mum I can’t change bits of me”.

“Your mum can only do that for a while, and you know very well that I’d still love your mum if she weren’t as lovely as she is. There’s nothing about your appearance I think you need to worry about”.

“I’m not sure, I’m not sure you’ll have noticed this”.

We weren’t a shy family, I’d seen Titu naked in the bath yesterday evening, which really only left one option. “That has to mean you lot were getting pretty intimate and exploring so presumably they’ve all agreed you look different between your legs”. Another sniffle, although the ball had unwound and was lying on its side looking at me. “I’ll admit, I’m not the world expert, I’ve seen three sexually mature women naked, my wife, Arya and you”.

“Not your real daughter”.

“No communal bathing isn’t done in Westeros and about the time my daughter’s breasts started to bud she started to make sure she was dressed when I saw her. That’s normal for Westeros. So as I was saying I’m not an expert and I’ve never looked at you in real detail, close up have I so that really cuts it down to my wife and Arya; but just those two I can say that different women look very different”. She sat up, she obviously wanted to know what I knew so I pressed on “My first wife I’d have said was, I don’t know, I’m struggling to find a simple word, I suppose ‘tidy’. Everything was quite small. You know what the stone statues look like, as though there isn’t really any sex bits at all except a thin line where the outer lips are touching”. She was nodding so I was obviously addressing what she was worried about. “By comparison you've seen Arya I think the words massively flamboyant are suitable don't you. but once I’ve stopped looking and we’re both getting excited I couldn’t notice that sort of difference at all”. She was giggling now, that was a good sign.

“Mum’s really lucky to have you. The question is will I be so lucky”.

“That’s a different question entirely, and you know my view on that, you need to know the man in question well. Your mother and I spent a long time together before we got as far as sex, we knew we trusted each other, and that wasn’t easy for your mum”. Had I succeeded, she seemed to be lot calmer, but then she rocked back onto her haunches.

“But there still has to be someone who’s so weird that she’s in trouble”.

“I doubt it but come on you’ve calmed down, now what actually happened and what makes you think you’re so much the odd one out that it isn’t just the difference between being tall with big boobs and short with tiny ones”.

“Well it was deliberate, we all went into the privy and sat down, and they have that big circular one so everyone can pretty well see everyone and we all opened our legs really wide so we could all look and it was meant to be ‘look we all look pretty much alike’ and most of them do and a couple are more like mum, sort of ‘a lot of it’, but that’s my problem, I haven’t got anything. It didn’t matter how far I spread my legs nothing came open”.

I thought about my memories of Titu. I didn’t go round staring at her, she was just there, it’s surprising when you then try and remember detail how it’s all a bit fuzzy. “So I don’t think that means everything’s not there it’s just the outer lips cover everything very well. I don’t think I should be the one poking around inside going look here’s the whatever, maybe something to discuss with your mum when she gets back”.

“Discuss what with mum”.

I’d given up jumping when she came in without anyone hearing and in this case it was a feeling of relief to be able to pass the issue over “Titu’s a bit worried that she doesn’t look normal between her legs, I thought you’d be better looking at it than me”.

“I doubt it, I’d not looked at myself until we did it together, Sansa would never have been that intimate”.

“It’s not the comparison it’s just a find the bits, so she’s sure she got them all and they’re just well hidden”.

“Please mum, I know it’s a bit freeky weird, but otherwise it’s an unanswered question”.

Ah the ‘question rule’ well I was stuck then. “Well come on then, Marcus push off and let us get on with it”.

I didn’t need asking twice, sometimes you make up good rules for your kids and then they come back and start to push your boundaries.

There was nothing wrong with Titu, everything was where it should be inside it was just very inside. It was a few years later and I’ve no doubt she’d forgotten all about it when she bedded one of the rising starts of the senate and then told him he was good enough so she would agree to marry him; so I think I can safely say he didn’t think it made a difference.


	53. Time marches by

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is about growing old and a very different culture, It never ends up as badly you think it might at one point. If however any mention of cross species sex frightens you then move on.

We’d taken Titu to meet the Nai S. Despite us talking about them a lot that was a quite a shock to her. It also caused Arya a problem; Titu’s breasts had started to appear so she had to wear clothes and the first time Arya turned ‘native’ and ran off naked she threw an almighty sulk. In one sense I could sympathise, I’d forgotten just how hot and humid it is out there. I routinely walked round in a loin cloth and nothing more and still felt hot and despite the very lightest silks Titu was obviously sweating quite a bit.

The joys of motherhood; Murasaki had told me I’d skipped the ‘easy bit’, having the baby and gone straight on to the stroppy child with Titu and our trip back to Limani certainly proved the point. It didn’t help that this time Marcus was on her side and in the end I had to admit it wasn’t fair on her, stay in human shape and wear some clothes. That made me realise just how much I like running around naked. If I’d never left Winterfell it wouldn’t have been an option, we wore clothes not for modesty but to avoid frostbite for most of the year; but I now spent most of my life in temperatures varying from comfortably warm to far too hot and I just wanted to be comfortable. On board ship it wasn’t so bad, there’s always the breeze, but the moment you’re more than a mile or two inland in some places the air goes still and basically I give up.

Inevitably we all went over to see our friends, what Arya thought of as Peachbum’s and me I thought more accurately since he was the dominant male as Bale’s house. So it was me who had to eat the humble pie this time. The women were all there except for Blossom who had died at the ripe old age of fiftyone, but Bales wasn’t. He’d lost out to Cuddles last autumn, who was now known as Bales, and was living out in the forest in what had been the mating house, before the introduction of the octopus tube made such things unnecessary.

Marcus seemed quite upset at Bigballs having been chucked out. He liked him and he still felt he owed him for the dock episode. He went and saw him for an afternoon and came back, as confused and upset as I think I’d ever seen him.

“It’s like he’s not him anymore, he’s lost his silver colour and just gone black, he’s also lost quite a bit of weight. He seems happy with himself, there are other old ex silvers out there so it’s a bit of an old man’s table in the tavern atmosphere, but to me he’s a very different person and it’s quite a shock.”

“I think you’re worried in case it happens to you. I run off with Fumio and leave you in the lurch”.

That made me laugh, that she’d suggest Fumio, who was the last man she would marry. He wanted a woman who would do what he expected and Arya was never going to fit into the mould. “Yes and no, I have a lot confidence in you than that, but I suppose there is the inner me going you’re old and at risk yes”.

In a way that was nice to hear, but that always put a nasty little idea in my brain, he trusted me because who else would want me. I hated myself for doing this but I had to ask “Marcus, do you still think I’m beautiful”.

“Oh that old chestnut. I’ve told you before from the first moment I set eyes on you I thought you were beautiful. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, as many times as I have to. You are the most beautiful master mariner in the Dragon Lands”.

“I want to believe you so why do I still have to ask”.

“I don’t really know, I can try and guess, but I might be wrong. You can do the same yourself and have more chance of being right. Feelings are just that, an emotional response. It may not be good to try and be rational about them because if the feeling doesn’t go away when you think they rationally should then that’s just putting more pressure on yourself; why can’t I control my emotions. None of us can do that and we all have imagined failings to beat ourselves up about”.

“So”.

“Get on with life, have friends who’ll keep telling you you’re are beautiful, one day it probably will go away, but in the meantime like you said, do or think about something else. And I know that’s easy for me to say but it’s really all you can do. When the snake got you all you could do was fight so you fought, when I snared you in my intricate web of erotic entrapment all you could do was shag me silly”.

“Now you’re being silly”.

“Yes but you’ve just smiled and if I’m really in luck you’re starting to think about sex not what you look like, any distraction will do and with you sex is still the quickest way to your brain, for some girls I’d recommend embroidery”. She hit me again, but still very gently.

It never truly went away but he was right, think about the positive things, get on with life and enjoy yourself you aren’t going to get a second chance and you never know when it will end. “You’re right and talking of sex, and me and someone else, we did a bit of sharing in Mushu didn’t we”.

“We did and very pleasant it was too. I have to admit when it was first suggested I went through with it entirely for you, but by the end I was enjoying myself. We all knew what we were doing, and we were all doing it willingly”. I had a strong feeling I knew what was coming next but I was going ot let her make the suggestion”.

He’d got a look in his eye, he knew what I was going to say, which was good because it wasn’t a knowing and disapproving look “So suppose I talked to Peachbum, you and she do play sex and I offer bigballs the same. I’m sure that twitch of his still works”.

“I think the first failing in that idea is new Bales attitude, Peachbum is his now not his dad’s. If I wanted to take Peachbum off him I’d need to think of some sort of reciprocation and you know what Peachbum told you about sex with a dominant male, basically he’d grind you into dust. So he’s my plan, you go and make the offer to Bigballs as you call him and I’ll look the other way for now in turn for some other treat you think up later”.

“Would you, that doesn’t seem totally fair on you”.

“Yes, partly because I like him, partly because I know why you’re doing it and it’s not to get at me and finally actually I think he’ll say no because, like I said, he’s changed in a way that a human male doesn’t”.

And so it proved. I went and offered, he looked really embarrassed and said he didn’t think it would work. I’m afraid I badgered him a bit so we gave it a try. I changed into a fertile female, he twitched a bit. I went back to just me, he twitched a bit, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it. In the end we had a long cuddle, which actually made me quite aroused, but I resisted the temptation to hump his hip bone just for my own satisfaction. He said I wasn’t to worry about him because he didn’t feel anything was wrong and I went back to the ship.

She came back looking very thoughtful and said could we do it but very gently, so we did.

Afterwards, when I was cuddling Marcus, I realised this was probably my fate in the future, but at least it wouldn’t happen when I was with him. 


	54. Everything's going swimmingly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another discussion of an anthropological study of sexual difference.

After our, not totally successful, trip to the Nai S we headed West to the sea coast of the mainland to the He Repo people. This was pure exploration, the He Repo were clearly closely related to humans, essentially they looked like us, but either they were heavily inbred, or they were actually a different species, because their typical size was just under five feet and they lived a completely different lifestyle.

I know I shouldn’t but I just loved the idea of going somewhere where I was going to be the very big girl and to add to the fun where I was going to get rid of my clothing for the duration of the visit. I’d found a dreamspeaker called Slender among them. They didn’t farm so didn’t deal with the Dragons and it had been a shock for her when I’d made contact. She didn’t know she possessed the skill and she was the only one I could find. Marcus thought that was very strange and we should investigate, but I wasn’t sure how, so I just got on with being friendly. I’m obviously improving my ability to be nice to people because by the time the Kittiwake dropped anchor Slender and her family group had travelled to the coast to meet us.

I’d tried to persuade Haerd to take the boat somewhere while we were away, but he was having none of it, so the Kittiwake rode at anchor for nearly three weeks waiting for us to come back. It turned out Arya’s dreamspeaker’s group normally lived well into the swamp lands, so we spent nearly a week getting there and back, but travelling wasn’t arduous. Essentially the area the He repo live in is more or less brackish water as you go further from the coast, with small islands with clumps of trees interspersed with stretches of between a half and one and a half miles of water, mostly about a fathom deep. There were big areas I could almost walk, except the bottom was soft silt, so mostly we swam.

I loved it, we took the cutter into the trees, actually sailed a mile or so inland taking Slender with us. She was interested in how sailing the boat worked, but it wasn’t long before we lost any worthwhile wind, so Marcus, Titu and I stripped off and went over the side with Slender, while two of the lads from the Kittiwake turned round and took the cutter back to the ship. After that it was swim from island to island, taking a break on each one before moving on. Funnily for all Marcus swims faster than me he as the one who needed more rest. I don’t know whether that was just his age or not. Eventually after a week we reached what she called their area, but it didn’t seem to impact or our lifestyle. The He Repo live a nomadic existence mostly eating raw shellfish that they harvest as they move around.

‘When with the He Repu’ the shellfish diet had me worried. I’d been brought up that shellfish were nice but dodgy and great care had to be taken not to get stomach problems sometimes near lethal stomach problems from them. Slender, via Arya, simply told me to let her do the picking, we’d harvest a load each she’d go through them chucking the odd one out here or there. She must have known what she was about because we all ate everything we were given with no ill effects.

When Marcus first started to fret about dodgy shellfish I’d joked with him “Come on you’re in thousands of gallons of salt water, I can’t imagine an easier place to get the shits, crap and swim on”. This turned out not to be the case, you peed as you went, but you were expected to find a suitably small ‘island’, defined as one too small to lie down on, and leave your more solid deposits there. That still gave you a wide range of locations though; the place was a honey comb of patches of land and stretches of water. Sleeping was done anywhere large enough and if the weather turned cold or wet you found somewhere to literally ‘rest your weary head’ leaving the rest of your body as much in the water as you could manage. Murasaki would have been aghast, there wasn’t a sign of ‘civilisation’, no buildings no commerce, no possessions, the He Repu wake up and swim or sit throughout the day, eating, talking and singing.

The singing was a bit odd at first. It was like wolfpacks howling at each other, a bunch of people sometimes as many as forty all in unison. As a result you could hear others from quite long distances, some of it was clearly communication but sometimes it was also just for the fun of it. They wanted us to join in, but I’ve had my voice described as ‘like a sea monster with a sore throat’ so I declined. Arya was even less willing, but was eventually persuaded and she has a lovely voice, light and delicate.

So we’ve dodged round the subject you’re really interested in haven’t we. There I was swimming around naked, and what was everybody doing about it. Well funnily enough the answer was much the same as we’d do on land in a decent society. Yes I know there are plenty of indecent societies where men think it’s their right to poke themselves into any available orifice but this wasn’t one of them. every male I came across looked and judging by the continued looking most liked what they saw, but then there were a dozen other naked women around me most of the time so it wasn’t something they weren’t used to. Then they tried to chat me up and when I said I was with Marcus they backed off fast since he was a foot taller than any of them. One night in the dark one young lad did try and slip a hand where he shouldn't, so I rolled onto my back in the water and kicked him. Only it doesn’t work as well in water because you go backwards as much as the kick goes out, but he got the message and left me alone. The thing is that sex in the water is difficult to impossible. We tried, you get to the critical bit and you forget to stay afloat, which tends to suddenly break the spell; and on the small bits of dry land virtually no one is ever alone.

All good things come to an end and we headed back to the coast to find the ship. I really wanted to just get in the boat and leave my clothes in a heap, I knew it wasn’t really an option. When we got aboard Marcus had an interesting idea though.

“Arya have you ever thought about the differences between a wild ape, the Nai S and us”.

“Not really, yes the Nai S look a lot like wild apes, but they talk, they reason just like we do so I don’t see much difference”.

“No neither do I, but they also look a lot like the animal ape types. It’s like horses and donkeys they’re different but not by much. Yet we’re so different, no fur, noses that point the opposite way, really long head hair and no fertile time, well no obvious fertile time, no swollen bums and smells and so on. So I was wondering, watching the He Repu did we all live like them once and that’s why we’re like we are”.

“You’ve lost me, I know we’re neither of us that convinced about the gods after all the choices we’ve seen over here but are you suggesting the Nai S could turn into us, or we once looked like them and turned into what we are now. That sort of idea will get you burned in a lot of places”.

“Which is why I’ll probably never mention it to anyone but you. Look at it this way, we were all designed by a god or gods, forget which one[s]; if I’m designing something I make it the best fit for the job, so the Kittiwake isn’t the Albatross because we don’t want her to carry as much cargo and we want her to be faster. So the wild apes and the Nais Sa are designed to fit their worlds which they both do. Likewise the He Repu, who fit was better than land. As an example have you ever seen a Nai S swim”.

“No”.

“Ever asked why not”

“No”.

“I have, I even tried to train Bales. They really struggle because the water goes down their noses unless they keep their heads in really high unnatural position, but our noses, which are like the He Repu face the other way and we can swim fine with them. So I think we were designed to live in the swamps and we left. I even think some of the holy books talk about it, the first man and woman leave the sacred garden where everything is milk and honey and no work etc. Would you describe the He Repu as’s lifestyle as close to idyllic”.

“Yes”, he had a point, I wasn’t sure I quite understood what he was suggesting but he seemed to be putting together some good reasons. “Did you notice how the kids hang onto their parent’s long hair when they’re young so they can just be towed through the water. Would that be another of your examples, we don’t have out kids dangled from our hair it would hurt too much, but there’s no weight impact for them when swimming”.

“See you’re getting the hang of it. I think there are two other things, breasts and sex. Think about the differences”.

“Well the Nai S have their swollen bottoms and you couldn’t see them in the water and we know they see breasts the same way, so are He Repu or human breasts a displaced bum signal and that’s why we only get them when we’re old enough to breed. They do tend to float rather well; Titu’s being bigger than mine she commented on them coming up to look at her as she swam”.

“Mmm I hadn’t considered that, I did notice that feeding mothers have their children pretty much on their laps, which makes sense, you can’t hold wet slippery skin, where Nai S mothers feed with the baby holding the hair so I wondered if the purpose was just to get the nipple downwards”.

“Maybe it’s a bit of both”.

“Could be; but I think the last ones the biggest. You’ve said the Nai S seem to have sex a lot better organised than us, in particular no real concept of rape because it doesn’t happen”.

“True”.

“So suppose we were designed to live in water, the Nai S system wouldn’t work, the water washes the scent away so males don’t have a message to get them going, we’re just always chasing women to see if they will let us mate. It’s not a problem in the water; sure He Repu men try it on but it’s pretty easy for women to avoid them, but once you get on land it falls apart. If I wanted to be brutal I could say all men turn into rapists because we’re always trying to force, however gently women not have sex”.

“By that brutalist condition then all women are whores because we only let you have sex in exchange for things, however stupid some of those things are, like promises of eternal love it’s still a sale. Maybe less aggressively we could say that men are always trying it on and women are always looking for some compensation for the risks of pregnancy”.

“Arya Stark, proponent of moderation, that’s an uncommon development”. That got me a grunt and she changed the subject.

“So why did we move out of the water”.

“Well the gods have all sorts of reasons, but the simplest would be that we breed like rabbits, there were just too many of us to all stay in the swamps”.

“You were wasted at sea Marcus, you should have been a Maester”.

“Quite possibly, you have managed to break all your ties to your parents expectations, most of us don’t”.

“True and I had to take some pretty dangerous steps to do it”.

“And you know my view but for the war you wouldn’t have got away with it”.

“True, big wars and big plagues do make it easier to change things, people get shaken out of the easy option and then discover that the alternative is actually better”.

“Well some do, others just die”.

“But you and I Marcus are survivors. Or at least we will be as long as you don’t spout this idea in front of the Grand Unified Priests of Kyrotome, or the Priests of Enlil, Ennead, Hada, Teshub, Ar, Dyaus, Cronus, Ahura Mazda, Baiame, Gitche. Do I need to keep going because those are only some of the gods never mind the goddesses”.

“No you’ve made your point and I’m impressed you can remember so many”.

“I’m good at lists”.


	55. Who's a big boy then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Largely more anthropology, but a bit of light smut thrown in.

We were right at the bottom of the inland sea. We’d been told they were primitive and wouldn’t trade with us, but Arya wanted to have a look and the Nai S were primitive to most of the occupants of the Inland Sea and we still traded with them very profitably, although what the effect on the local octopus population was I’m not sure. We were ghosting along the coast; the sheets were loose so the wind provided minimal drive. Then it slid in to view, clearly a small pier sticking out into the water in a small inlet. No sign of people immediately but it was sign they were in the area. We dropped anchor and Arya and I rowed in using the gig.

As we approached the pier, some people started to appear, naked women and small children, and a bunch of men brandishing spears. They were pretty simple spears, really just a stick with a sharpened end, but enough to kill you if used properly “Easy all Marcus”

I eased off and let the oars drag in the water to slow us down; she’d obviously seen something “Trouble”

“Maybe, maybe not. Twenty people including five men with pointy sticks”.

“So they look like they intend to use the sticks on us”.

“Not at the moment, I’d say it was more puzzled cautiousness than aggression”.

“Well you’re the expert” I realised she was getting undressed. “I take it you’re doing that for a purpose”. I worked one oar and brought us side on so I could have a look. Ah, no one seemed to be bothered with clothing; or at least the women and kids didn’t, the men had a neat line in groinal protection, or cover or whatever; they all sported some sort of horn shaped curved article fitted over their member. These must be tied on as they stuck out and up. By the time I’d worked this out Arya was stood naked in the boat. No one really reacted, but that wasn’t exactly an invite to land.

“Get your clothes off Marcus, you the one that’s causing an upset if anyone is”.

I got my shirt off, I’d no sandals on anyway, but when I stood and started removing my breeches spears started pointing at me, so I stopped. Someone was shouting at someone, one of the men ran off. We floated there for a good few minutes then the missing man came back. The one who’d done the shouting beckoned us closer. I manoeuvred the boat nearer and something flew through the air and landed at my feet. It was a male horn device, I picked it up and looked at it, it was a hollowed out fruit skin, I think they’re called gourds, thick fibrous and there were strings attached. I backed us way from the pier, got my pants off sitting down and fastened the thing round me. It went over the end and stayed on alright, but it was a bit small, I was only about two thirds covered.

I could see him struggling to get into the covering. Still it was on and when we turned the boat round and he stood up we were beckoned in. ‘When in.. well wherever we were’. Marcus brought us alongside the pier and we were helped out of the boat. We tied up to the leg of the pier and they quickly took us a couple of hundred yards, just far enough into the trees for the pier to be out of sight and I suspect more importantly for us to all be under the canopy and direct sunlight. As we walked I tried a few words of trader ‘Friends, talk, trade’, and got no response. When we were under the trees the biggest man turned to Marcus, oh the usual assumptions of the male being in charge; and started to chatter away.

The big man was trying to talk to me and it meant nothing. I shook my head and started from scratch, point to myself “Marcus”, point to Arya “Arya”, point towards him, not directly at him some people think that’s offensive make open handed shrugging gesture. That seemed to make sense to him, he pointed to himself “Jabata”, then a woman standing next to him “Jabatane”. The others were drifting off as if they’d lost interest. Jabata pointed into the trees and we walked another fifty yards to his house, made of lightweight bamboo grass poles for the walls and some sort of leaf for the roof. We sat down outside and Jabatane brought out some fruit and shared it round. A mouthful of fruit or two later and Jabata disappeared into his house and came out with a stone knife. Hand signs, he and I were going somewhere.

The boys disappeared into the forest, Jabatane brought us some more fruit. I made can I look signs for inside the house. Of course I could, what woman doesn’t like to show off her house, yes I know stereotypical but these things often are, however much it irritates me. There wasn’t much to see, some bone knives, no sign of cooking utensils, a couple of dried out gourds full of water. I was offered and accepted a drink. Two children, one about five, the other ten, appeared. The ten year old was a boy, still naked, still looking like a child between his legs, so I assumed the cover came with puberty, your first full erection meant a ceremony and your first cover being tied on you or something similar.

There didn’t seem to be a plan of action, the kids were trying to climb the tree behind the house, then coming back in to stare at me a bit, then back out to the tree. Another woman turned up with another couple of kids did the pointing “Kabatane”. Good that meant Jabatane didn’t just mean woman, She said something to Jabatane that produced giggles and pointing at where Marcus and Jabata had gone. Then she turned round to me and mimed a man getting an erection, an exaggerated, ‘that’s big’ gesture and smiling broadly, patted me on the back. I grinned back and nodded my head. I’d never had cause for complaint so I wasn’t going to start now. More chatter and pointing, the boys were coming back. Both the women turned round as Marcus came into view, they were clearly trying not to look at him.

“We’d been into the forest with Jabata clearly looking for something; then he was off up a tree, two fruit came down and he was back on the ground. We took one each and headed back and I realised these were clearly the same fruit as my little protector was made from. A suspicion was forming in my mind. We were back at the house quite quickly; he took both gourds and handed them to Arya. I noticed the other women were looking the other way while I was stood behind him so I backed off a pace or two and turned round. He came back to me with a bit more fruit to eat and then motioned for us to lean on a tree each.

I was handed the gourds then the two of them went out of sight. Once they’d gone the two women came back to me. One took a stone knife and the other gave me one. She started cutting into the fruit. I was reaching for my own knife before I realised I’d left it in the boat. Quick ‘Wait here’ signal and I sprinted out past the men. “Marcus I’m just getting my knife, back in a second”.

She’d gone before I could reply. Jabata looked at me, he was clearly worried she was frightened. I did my best to gesture ‘don’t worry’; I’m not too sure how well it was working but it was literally minutes and she was back.

Gods it was hot, a couple of hundred yards and I was covered in sweat. Anyway I went back into the house, showed them the knife. That stopped the show, Jabata was called in, then Marcus started to follow and the women started to look worried “Marcus stay outside please, until I’ve done some work in here you’re really not properly dressed”.

My suspicions had been right “Fine I’ll go lay behind a tree let me know when you’re ready”.

Yes I was pretty sure I could trade knives with them, they quickly realised they wouldn’t chip like a piece of flint. I wasn’t sure what I might ask for in return though. Then we set to work on our gourds, cleaning out the inside first then cutting them to length. I realised I had no real idea how long it needed to be so I had to go out and measure him up. Tricky without actually undressing him and playing with his cock in public.

She came out of the house with a half-finished cover in her hands and stood about two feet away trying to compare lengths. That was silly so I took it from her, held it against myself, allowed for room for expansion and bit more for safety’s sake, used her knife to mark the length and gave it her back.

Thankfully he realised what I as trying to do and sized it up himself, marking the length he wanted. I took it back inside, the two women took one look at it with wide eyes and then showed me how to fix the strings to hold it not just in place, but at an adequately impressive angle. Then they went out and sent him in.

The two women came out and shoed me inside where I found Arya holding my new cover. It certainly looked a lot bigger than the one I had on; had my ego got the better of me. She handed it to me and then helped me tie thee strings. A good job too, the get it inclined at the right angle adjuster needed two sets of hands. And no, once it was on it fitted quite nicely.

Once he was dressed we went back out. Everyone nodded their approval and when the men were looking the other way Kabatane repeater her, ‘big boy’ gesture to me. He certainly looked a lot bigger than Jabata and I wasn’t going to argue.

We stayed for another hour or so, just lying around and eating a bit more fruit then went back to the boat as it was heading towards dusk. I got dressed while Marcus rowed, but there wasn’t quite time for him to do the same; largely because I put my back into rowing to get us home before he could. The crew found his new garb highly amusing.

As soon as she took the oars and attacked them like it was a race, I realised what she was up to and I knew if tried to disrupt her plan she just do something more dramatic like tip me into the water so I climbed the side of the boat, got a load of comments from the crew and went aft. Titu stuck her head out of her cabin and made a comment about not realising I had size issues and needed a fake to help. The things I tolerate for Arya's definition of 'trade'.


	56. Those who pay with dragons get burnt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are two halves to this, firstly we do some trading involving sexual products, then remember that subplot about dragons in my head, well this where it gets important so you need to read on or you've sort of wasted most of the rest of the story.

Overnight I felt for a dreamsleeper, but found no one. If there was a dragon in this area they made his own arrangements or relied on communities a bit further North. Then I felt him, it had to be the local dragon it just felt so old, so magnificent and so very male.

“What’s a dreamsleeper doing this far South, who are you”

“Arya Stark my lord” I’d learned a little flannel went a long way with Dragons and in the end they were so much more powerful than me it was stupid not to. “I’m a trader, so I’m on a ship at the far Southern end of the Inland Sea”.

“So you’re no use to me, they just eat fruit and very occasionally trap small wild pigs. Stark though that name rings a bell. You’re not the ‘uppity one who doesn’t know her place’ according to that stuck up young prig over the Sunrise Islands are you”.

“That may well be me, when I first met her august personage I was inexperienced, but I’ve learned better”.

“As I said she's a bit of a prig, I’d love to live long enough to give her her mating flight and shake her sense of superiority, but it won’t happen”.

Blank mind

“Very wise young lady, you’ll go far”

“Thank you my lord” and he was gone form my head, leaving just a vague feeling of loss that I always got with a dragon.

We went back to land the next morning with a selection of silly things to trade plus a bunch of metal knives. Some of them weren’t even new, I’d scavenged round the crew for a few spares, it wasn’t something we’d normally bother with, every village had a smith who could make you a knife. We knew we weren’t going to make money out of this; at best we were going to get something interesting at worst a bit of ballast for the hold.

Marcus had collected as many knives as he could and some ornamental things. I got a box full of mooncups; I was sure once they’d seen some they’d make their own but why not start them off with decent supply. Maybe they could even trade them with other groups, there had to be other groups twenty people don’t make a society. Well I was right about that, we got ashore to nearly fifty adults, word had clearly been spread. Marcus went round the men, each knife went for a few fruit or an odd small animal, half pig half rodent. I rounded up the women and took them to Jabatane’s house. There I got my mooncup out and was about to show them where it was inserted when one of the women cocked her leg up and showed me the shaft of hers in place. So civilisations very latest tool was in use amongst the savages already. I was bit crestfallen, I suppose I had seen myself as going to bring light to the simple folk and I’d been simply put back in my place.

I put my cup back in the box and realised virtually all of the women had gone. Jabatane was rooting in a bag made of some sort of woven plant leaf. Then she brought out the most exotically carved dildo I’d ever seen. It was a perfectly sensible size, but it was so decorated with swirls and little projections I wondered if it was actually a dildo and not just some sort ornament, but no Jabatane was making motions that clearly indicated where it went. On closer inspection it was wood but the colour was a beautiful dark red and the grain was so tight it was as smooth as anything I’d ever handled. With our connection to Dodeshi I knew these were quality items and would make a good price. Within half an hour I’d taken fifty and I was pretty sure they were all new and unused, although I figured a quick rub down with strong grog and they’d be clean even if they weren’t. Me a dodgy trader, show me one who isn’t and is still making a profit. I indicated we should go back to the men.

I saw Arya come back with the mooncup box, which hadn’t been her plan. Ah well maybe the local’s had their own ways and didn’t want to change. Then I realised they were all carrying woven bags, clearly she was bringing something for us instead. “What have you got”.

“A load of unnecessary mooncups, they’ve got their own already”.

That was a bit of a surprise “And in the bags”.

“Enough high grade novelty dildos to make Dodeshi’s eyes pop out and us a fat profit, now all we have to do is agree a price. What do they want”.

“The knives, they’re not interested in the fancy stuff. They clearly don’t have iron down here”.

“What else is on the ship that we can afford to manage without until we get to another port; pots, pans, anything”. The answer was a lot of things; every man carried a ‘hussif’ for sewing repairs, one needle per man into the collection for a share of the sale price of the dildos. A couple of axes, and boat hooks, the cauldron from the galley and several pots were added to the list. By the time we’d got back to them more folk had turned up from further afield. The knives were already sold but the other items were effectively auctioned off. Marcus put one item on the ground, each family showed us what they’d offer, we took what we thought was the best. I kept a couple of the needles and gave them to Jabatane and Kabatane as presents since they’d used their houses for the day to allow everyone to stay in the shade.

So back to the boat, a couple of the crew had helped us bring the cutter over, they weren’t allowed ashore though; so since waiting at the pier, which was in the full sun, wasn’t realistic they went back to the Kittiwake and came back when they saw us waiting to be collected. The biggest failing of the trip looked like we had a lot of fresh meat and no cauldron to cook it in, but one of the boys we’d picked up from up north, showed us how to wrap it in a simple flour dough and bake it in the embers of the fire.

The second mate Motota took us away back north and Marcus and I were both off watch together so we got some sleep. I think I was asleep, not drowsy like I usually was to dreamspeak, when an intensely erotic feeling washed over me. I had to mate and I was going to penetrate my mate and inseminate her deeply, everything was pulsing, throbbing, I could feel juices pumping from me to a female and it was just going on and on and on.

I woke to Arya pinning me down to the cot, I don’t know where her strength was coming from but I couldn’t move her, her naked hips were riding me and it was hacving an unavoidable effect, I tried to think where the sheath was but it wasn’t in reach and I couldn’t move. She had me inside her and I could feel her sheath muscles milking me, she’d never done this before, I could feel things happening, very quickly. I desperately tried to think of distractions, navigation maths anything but it was no good the inevitable happened and it seemed to go on for ever. She was milking me with muscles I didn’t realise she’d got, then they clamped around me, she rolled onto her back dragging me on top and we stayed that way for at least an hour. I tried speaking to her, shaking her as best I could, but she was gone, it was like something else was in charge of her body.

Eventually the feelings slowed and a little voice in my head said, “That’s something that’ll never happen again in your lifetime; I hope you enjoyed it” and he was gone. Had I had just had dragon sex. Something was moving me, I woke up to find Marcus shaking me really quite hard, why was I laying on my back with my legs wide apart, and why was Marcus………… “Oh gods no”.

Finally I could see her eyes were back with me, her muscles let go of me, but it seemed a bit too late to bother to pull it out.

“What have we done”.

“Had the longest bout of sex of my, and I suspect your, life and no I couldn’t get at the sheath so if you’re not pregnant after that we’ll be exceedingly lucky. How long since you bled”.

“Just short of two weeks”.

“The perfect time to get you pregnant then. What happened”.

“Dragon sex, the old male went for his mating flight and, I think he thought he was doing me a favour, showing me something special; and I suppose he was in more ways than one”.

“How do you feel”.

“Like I’ve had the best sex of my life, totally drained, totally satisfied”. I realised that’s exactly how I did feel, there was no fear of pregnancy. Was that the aftereffects of the dragon and I’d panic at breakfast tomorrow or was I really ready to become a mother.


	57. Well at least you won't sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've got to laugh haven't you, even when you're screaming with the pain, but the end result is worth it.

Well it had happened, the weeks passed and nothing started, so I was pregnant. I think I’d resigned myself to it from day one, well not even resigned, accepted it was going to happen. After the event I had a very clear memory of what had happened, how my body had trapped Marcus inside me, it wasn’t naturally human, it had to be the way dragons mated and in some way despite the fact it was the male’s mind I was in my body had done the female dragon things to make it more certain I’d conceive.

Titu by comparison was really excited, she started counting days, we usually bled at about the same time, so when she began and I didn’t she virtually went round the ship crowing. It was like I was her toy doll, to be played with so she could watch it all happen. Which was good when I got morning sickness for a couple of weeks, I made a point of making sure she joined in that bit of fun and helped clean up afterwards. In a way she was frightening me, she was so keen on a baby I was afraid she’d decide she wanted one of her own far sooner than I thought wise.

So I was going to be a father aged seventy one. One part of me was of course feeling really quite cocky, life in the old dog etc; but I knew I’d be unlikely to see the child full grown. The consolation was it was obvious while this hadn’t been planned it wasn’t something Arya was rejecting and I was sure she’d be as good at being a mother as she was at anything else she put her mind to. She was already doing well enough with Titu, and in many ways babies are the easy bit; tiring but far fewer arguments than when they get older. There was another perk, she got even randier than normal while she was pregnant. Apart from a couple of weeks when she had morning sickness she was wearing me out, but I made the most of it, I didn’t expect much for a while afterwards, then it would be her who was tired.

Marcus didn’t know the half of it, I don’t know whether it was the pressure of the baby on things below it but I felt semi-permanently aroused and there was always a bit of an itch. We were having sex at night and sex in the morning and if he was on watch I might have to satisfy myself in mid-afternoon as well.

I accepted that I needed to be on land by the time the baby arrived and to stay there for a while afterwards so we stopped at sea for as long as possible. I loved sailing, just the wind and the ship, particularly at night when you could see all the stars in a way you don’t on land particularly in towns and cities. So I started to swell, at first just a gentle smooth curve then it got more pronounced, then it got frankly ridiculous, I was waddling and leaning backwards to balance the weight, which gave me backache and I was still months to go. The only consolation was if we hove to I could get in the water, just, but then I floated. It might not have looked pretty but it was comfortable, an hour in the middle of the day became part of the sailing routine whenever possible. Technically I was master on this trip, Marcus was just along for the ride and looking after Titu, so it counted as ‘skipper’s perks’.

She just kept getting bigger, Titu and I started to worry, we were both keeping count and I knew my wife hadn’t been this big when she gave birth. We weren’t far from home and she started getting little cramps so it was with considerable relief we got back home to Kyrotome.

The nearer I got the more Marcus was starting to fret. It seemed strange he’d been a father before, yet he seemed more worried than I was. That worried me, was I blissfully ignorant where he’d seen things going wrong. I tried to suggest he did a short run to Tadema just to get him out of the house, but he was having none of it.

I was really surprised how well everything was going and in particular the way she’d just accepted the idea she was going to have a child. I don’t know if it was the effect of Titu, or she was getting older, but the one thing I she never even hinted at was that she was unhappy it was happening. I even gave her opportunities if she wanted to ‘own up’. She mentioned one night she’d been warging and Nymeria was suckling puppies and how good it felt; so I said “Yes but puppies get weaned and grow up a lot faster than children”.

“True but I’ll live a lot longer than Nymeria, she’s on her last legs now and I’m just getting started”. I knew he was fishing and in some ways I was as confused as he was. Yes there was the ‘what can you do about the weather’ attitude, but that wasn’t how I felt. Maybe there was something happening in my head driven by the baby forming inside of me, maybe I had just got older, but somehow things just felt right.

Then it stopped feeling right and just felt bloody painful, it was like someone had put lines inside me and was pulling bits of me around in imitation of the tides. I’m pretty sure I did a lot of screaming, which bothered me because Titu had insisted on staying to watch and a couple of times she looked pretty frightened. Marcus looked quite relaxed, he’d done this all before of course and apparently he had actually been in the room, something they’d never have stood for in the castle.

My first wife had always been quick at giving birth, never took more than six hours and I remembered the older women who’d been round as midwives always saying, ‘we never have problems with quick ones’. Arya also seemed to be getting on with it so I think I spent as long reassuring Titu, who’d bitten off more than she could chew but wasn’t going to admit it, as I did Arya.

Suddenly I got this massive urge to shit. I’m afraid my view of having babies is that it’s the largest most constipated crap of your life, but the relief is equally massive. Suddenly I was collapsing onto the floor and being given this little screaming skinned rabbit to hold. I took a good look between its legs, it was a girl, we’d already discussed names “Hello little Catelyn welcome to life”. She was still bawling so I did my best to feed the end of my breast into her mouth, we didn’t get it at the first try but after one of the midwives had pulled my boob around a bit she stuck on and shut up. Whoa!, the first suck shot down into the middle of me in a massive surge, pulling me back together like sheeting in the mainsail.

Funnily once Arya started to bear down Titu seemed to lose her fear so it was her that took hold of the baby and passed it up to Arya; then she took hold of the umbilical and pressed down on the lower belly and brought the afterbirth out in one nice solid piece. The midwife was impressed and I was relieved, my sister had died because of bits of her afterbirth getting left behind and she just bled to death.

So here I was, a mother after all those years of avoiding it. It wasn’t all plain sailing, I got horrendously sore breasts after about ten days, feeding was hell, but it passed. Titu and Marcus both pulled their weight with the baby. I had wondered if Marcus would run away to sea, but he said he’d only done it before because they needed the money and we didn’t, we had four ships and masters for all of them even with the two of us on land. When I had trouble feeding Titu took the baby to let her comfort suck on her breast and we joked about her producing milk, so I was totally staggered when it happened. By the time it did I was on the mend, but she kept at it and little Catelyn became big Catelyn rather fast feeding off two of us. There’s just one other thing I remember about that time. I had some very strange dreams, but the details always elude me.

My daughter turned out to be a ginger. All my life I’d wanted a ginger woman and now I’d got one, not the way my younger self had wanted one but it was good enough at my age.


	58. Dictator Moi!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We discuss another cultures sexual habits, along with my personality.

“You didn’t like Lakadamda did you”.

“Let’s say I was a little more nervous than usual in the seedier parts of town. You on the other hand were your usual experimental self.”

“True, if it isn’t going to hurt or get me pregnant I’ll try pretty much anything once. But I’ve got to be honest it isn’t my thing. My dream speaker, Cynisca as you’d call her, female puppy as it came over to me, was really good at explaining and really helpful and a lovely woman but it was playing, not serious for me, which is why I stopped because she seemed to be getting serious about the two of us and I didn’t want to hurt her. In many ways I’d have loved to stay there. It’s probably the only place in the Dragon Lands where women are treated, well if not as absolute equals then certainly with a lot more respect. You know she raced Chariots don’t you”.

“Another reason I was nervous there, I as just waiting for you to say that was something else you were going to try. You were keen enough back in Kyrotome when we first arrived”.

“Yes I also didn’t have a child to worry about then, my sense of what is going to hurt and how much has shifted in the last few years”.

“What do you think will happen to them”.

“You mean will they die out because no one actually has any children, they’re so busy enjoying themselves they’ve got out of the habit of breeding”.

“Yes”.

“I don’t know, they do seem to be going that way. In many ways it would be very sad if they did, it’s the only place I’ve been greeted on the dockside by a woman who spoke to me first not you. Unlike all the places they make women stay in the home or wear ridiculous clothes so they’re ‘protected’. All those women need for protection is a sharp knife and training in using it in an upward motion starting at groin level. Marcus why are men like that, you aren’t so why do they have to be”.

“They don’t have to be, they just like it that way. You know how it is, men are interested in dominating and if you’re at the bottom of the man pile then all that’s left is your woman. I’ve always put it down to men being stupid”.

“Now you’re just trying to suck up to me”.

“No I think it’s true, Homo Sapiens they call us in Kyrotome, which translates variously as the wise man, the thinking man, or similar, nothing about the stupid, idle, selfish, brutal man but I know a lot more of them, some in positions of massive power, than I do truly wise men”.

“And does that include yourself”.

“In many ways yes and I might add you. In this case I’m using man in the generic sense here not the masculine”.

“So you wouldn’t have any time for that idea they have in Henata, what did they call it, democracy, that everyone gets to vote about things”.

“It certainly has its problems, starting with who gets to vote, Henata didn’t let women, children or slaves vote. Setting aside women and slaves, who decides how old you have to be to not be a child”.

“Well usually girls aren’t children after their first bleed. I suppose you could define a boy the same way, if he can produce a stream of cream he’s grown up”.

“You’d fancy a job like that wouldn’t you”.

“What testing the boys, oh I think most of them would work it out themselves. You told me once that either their friends tell them what to do or they wake up with a sticky patch in their bed”.

“True, so you’re making them adult at about say twelve”.

“At least it would encourage girls to be proud of their first bleed and to eat well to ensure it happens early. Titu tells me there are some she knows who are starving themselves deliberately so it doesn’t happen”.

“But in law when it comes to property and other things in Westeros you’re not adult until you’re twenty one. I think it’s eighteen in Kyrotome, but that’s a good few years gap; it doesn’t seem to make much sense”. 

“Now Marcus how often have you told me things don’t make sense. But back to politics, you prefer a system of some sort of dictatorship”.

“Depends on your dictator doesn’t it. I don’t think there’s a good answer; you’re always offsetting one disadvantage against another. A good dictator can be very effective, but the trouble is that getting to be a dictator tends to encourage and reward the wrong sort of people”.

“It does seem to be the case that a lot of people like being told what to do, some dictators get to be very popular”.

“It takes away the need to think about things, worry about them. If you had a democracy and had to vote on all the cities problems at regular intervals most people wouldn’t want to, they wouldn’t understand they’d get tired of it. I think most of them would just listen to and vote the way the best orator told them. Back to most people are lazy, they want someone else to take the decisions, which also means they can avoid any blame when it all goes wrong. Imagine voting for something and seeing it bankrupt the city and having to accept you caused that. No most people just want to get on with their lives and let someone else deal with big problems”.

“True, I mean by now I’m tired of discussing politics and I just want to get on with my life in other ways”.

“Is that a hint”.

“It might be”.

“Should we do this democratically and have a vote”.

“No you’re right voting can get boring besides if there’s only two of us it might be difficult to get a majority, we’d have to introduce a third member of the electorate to ensure decisions actually got made. No I prefer an enlightened dictatorship”.

“So what does my dictator suggest for tonight”.

“Me, the dictator”.

“You’re going to suggest I make the decisions round here”.

“I think we have a balance, I decide I want sex, but I usually I leave how up to you”.

“I think you treat me like a ship at sea, you know if things are creaking not to drive me too hard or you’ll break me”.

At last he’d got the hint. Yes I’m a dictator, but I’m very delicate, subtle dictator. I’ve always found if I lead him somewhere wet he’s inclined to take a drink. 


	59. One in, One out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're tying things up here, there may be a sad bit, but not that sad.

It was an old saying and it applied to both our children. Elog died only a few days after Catelyn’s birth. By general consensus we buried him at sea as we were to do with all the crew of the Petrel. Apart from me, a couple managed a child in the Dragon Lands, but most didn’t and we felt it was best for a sailor to go back to the sea for one last time.

The second loss hit me the most; Nymeria died just days before I gave birth to my son Jon. With no contact one night I realised she’d gone. I really pushed my mind to find something to try and prove it wasn’t so and I think just for a second I found Bran, or rather the three eyed raven. The feeling wasn’t good, it really didn’t feel human, but I got a flash of a throne and then of Sansa. I tried to imagine my family but the contact, if it existed, broke very quickly and despite some attempts years later it never came back.

I have spent the latter part of my life surrounded by a couple of outstanding women. Titu had really taken an interest in childbirth and spent time with the local midwives so when Arya went into labour with Jon and it didn’t get going as fast as the previous time it was just her and me with Arya. After a couple of hours she turned to me “I’m going to the privy and then to get Hamata from down the road, when we get back I expect you to have ploughed the furrow and sowed the seed” and she was out of the room. I must have had a funny look on my face because it didn’t make sense to me I’d clearly sowed the seed nine moths previously.

“What she means is get into me and produce as much as you can inside, apparently several of the older women swear it gets a woman going faster”.

Well I didn’t need a second invite, I knew it would be a while before I’d get anything this way again so I plugged the hole and got on with it. It seemed to work. Arya got very down after the second child, for several months she almost gave up bothering, Titu spent a lot of time with her, which left me looking after Catelyn. Seventythree is no time to have a two year old to manage. She was learning to talk and I didn’t speak either trader or the local language that well and she was far too active for the old man I was fast becoming. The saving grace was the bath. By this time we owned our own villa. We’d been happy enough in the apartment but Murasaki had just kept on and on at Arya until she allowed me to have a villa built. Now the advantage of that was that we had the largest warm pool we could fit in, so I taught Catelyn to swim and if everything else fell apart I just got her into the water and let her wear herself out that way.

I don’t remember much about this time but I do remember one conversation; I was lamenting the fact that we’d never been to the Dragon mountains on the western edge of the main landmass. “I wanted to see them. We could have sailed round the coast when we went to Chersky but for some reason we didn’t. Mountains a mile high that belch fire and red hot rock have got to be impressive”.

I had no interest in those mountains, if I got to the other side there were no ports, just a rock strewn coast so I couldn’t sail away from them, even if the dragons had let me. I’d done the maths, you were nearer Essos going West than Westeros going East from Limani and the trade winds would be with you from Essos, so a sensible explorer would go that way round, but if they wanted to complete the circle they would have to find a way below the equator that got them away from the dragons. None of this was what I needed to say to Arya though “Well we’ve got years to go yet, let the little ones get grown and we can take them with us”.

I don’t know why what happened happened but Thank The Gods it stopped happening after about six months. I went back to feeling like a human being, but I wasn’t having any more children, the tube went back on or we played games. Strange that, well it seemed strange to me, in under four years I’d gone from ‘no babies’ to ‘come on lets have another’ and back to ‘no babies’ again. I pointed out to Titu she was free from her promise, but she said she wanted to stay with me and go back to sea with me whenever that happened so we agreed maybe a bit of fun with Haerd wouldn’t do her any harm.


	60. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly we look back.

Weren’t we a conventional domestic family. Here I was with one baby sucking on my breast and another running round under my feet and Marcus was sat opposite me letting a rather fine meal digest. Alright he was old enough to be my father, but I’d known more than one young girl married to some elderly lord because the alliance mattered and I hadn’t been married off to Marcus I’d decided I wanted him although it had taken me a while. “What came first Marcus, paternalism or lust”.

“Wah”, I’d been on the edge of sleep and she was asking me what.

“I said what urge struck you first with me, the desire to cherish and protect or the desire to mount and mate”.

“Well then that would be the desire to cherish and protect. The Arya who walked onto the ship may have lost her virginity but she wasn’t a sexual woman in her own mind. You may have been relieving your bodily need, but that wasn’t any different from taking a pee”. 

“More fun though”.

“Yes but you know what I mean”

“So from the moment I arrived you were planning to make me better, to calm my savage impulses”.

“Not in any organised way of I’m going to show her this today and that next week no. I as just going to be me and let you be whatever you wanted to be, but since you weren’t going to be in a confrontational, violent world, you’d stop being such a violent confrontational person”.

“So what if it hadn’t been me, what if they’d exiled Jon, or Jon hadn’t killed Daenerys but they exiled her”.

“From the paternalistic perspective I’d have done the same thing with both of them, obviously there’d have been nothing sexual between Jon and I and from what you say of Daenerys I’m not sure we’d have had much connection either”.

“Really even after months at sea, her humping her hand next to you”.

“Would she have done that. She and your sister are rulers, they want to dominate, you don’t and that’s a big difference. I think she’d have been far more private, the curtain would have stayed up, I might even have been chucked out and made to live in the fo’c’sle”.

“You mentioned Sansa, what about her, if they’d not let her become Queen of the North and it had been her”.

“You’re a far better person to answer that question, I met her twice for an hour or two in total so I have no idea what sort of person she really is”.

That made me think, how much had I seen of Sansa in those last few months, how much did I understand her by the end. “I think if you’d been gentle with her like you were gentle with me she would have come round to liking you. Having sex with you, I don’t know, she always seemed so passive about sex when we were little. It wasn’t just the ‘I have to play the blushing maiden to win the fine prince’ she genuinely just wasn’t as interested as me. I can remember once I took her with me into the hayloft in the stables. I’d heard the boys talking and sure enough maybe the second or third time we hid and looked downwards one of the boys gave himself a hand job in one of the loose boxes and we watched him. It was the first time either of us had seen a stiff cock or the cream squirt out and it made me feel all excited in my crotch, I nearly put my fingers in there and then but her attitude was disinterested. I think she said something like ‘I suppose they have to since they can’t have a girl’ or ‘It saves them making a mess in the bed’. It was like she really wasn’t interested”.

“I think a lot of women are a lot less interested in sex than you are Arya, I think your sister isn’t the only one who doesn’t want to leap on the first man she sees”.

“That’s unfair, if I was that bad I’ve had Haerd on the fo’c’sle top the first night”.

“You’re not bad, I’m just saying I think a lot of others girls and women don’t have as strong an urge as you and if the stories I heard are true your sister was badly abused so it’s not surprising if she didn’t want any more men”.

“I think you could have done it though, when she realised you were never going to be a threat she’d have been friendly and the in the end she’d have got lonely and if you’d told her you loved her she’d have let you because you loved her and then learned to enjoy it later”.

“Well the compliment is appreciated. Is there a reason for this line of discussion”.

“No I’m just rambling while Jon sucks on my boob”. I realised I was just rambling because he’d stopped sucking and fallen asleep. I did have one little idea though “I’ve just had a thought, I could do a passable impersonation of my sister, you admitted you like redheads, we could put the kids to bed and go and play ‘Sansa and Marcus on the Petrel’”.

“The ideas tempting, but it would be your head in Sansa’s body so it wouldn’t be very real, but you could just become ginger Arya. I’ve told you before that's my ideal woman”.

So I did and he did. 

\------------------------------------------------------

I've written a chapter about Marcus' death, and discovered I haven't the guts to publish it, lets just say he was never going to outlive me.


End file.
